THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes 


MEETING 50 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. III 


DAY THREE 


The verbatim transcript of the 50th 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Holiday Inn Select, 


Naperville, Illinois, on Oct. 5, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS 

404/733-6070 
 

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C O N T E N T S 

Oct. 5, 2007 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 

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SCIENCE ISSUES UPDATE 

DR. JIM NETON, NIOSH 

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NIOSH WEB SITE UPDATE 

MS. CHRIS ELLISON, NIOSH 

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BOARD WORKING TIME: TRACKING OF STATUS OF 

TRANSCRIPTS AND MINUTES 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 

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ROCKY FLATS FOLLOW-UP ACTIONS STATUS 

DR. JIM NETON, NIOSH 

104 

REVIEW OF SEC PETITION WRITE-UPS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

118 

SUBCOMMITTEE AND WORK GROUP REPORTS 

CHAIRS 

125 

BOARD WORKING TIME: TRACKING OF BOARD ACTIONS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

170 

FUTURE PLANS AND MEETING 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

188 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 218 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 


or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

BEACH, Josie 


Nuclear Chemical Operator 


Hanford Reservation 


Richland, Washington 


CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 

 

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LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 


MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 


Professor, Texas A&M University 


College Station, Texas 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


SCHOFIELD, Phillip 


Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 


Los Alamos, New Mexico 

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SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

ALLEN, BRANDON 


AMENO, NEDRA K., C.A.S.E 


AMENO, PATRICIA, CO-PETITIONER 


ANIGSTEIN, ROBERT, SC&A 


ANTOFF, KEITH, DOW 


ANTOFF, KEVIN, DOW 


ANTOFF, MARY, DOW 


BALDRIDGE, SANDRA, FERNALD 


BARBER, PHYLLIS J., BLOCKSON 


BARTELS, PHYLLIS, NIOSH 


BERRY, TERRI, ROCKY FLATS 


BREYER, LAURIE, NIOSH 


BROCK, DENISE, NIOSH 


BRUBAKER, BETTYE & JOHN, CLAIMANT 


BUCKHAUSE, JANETTE, NIOSH 


BURKHART, HARRY, BLOCKSON 


CAMPUS, ELEANOR J., BLOCKSON 


CANO, REGINA, DOE 


CHANG, C, NIOSH 


CHARLEY, MARY B., BLOCKSON 


COOK, DIXIE 


D’ATRI, A.R., RETIRED 


DETMERS, DEB, CONG. SHIMKUS 


DUGKO, JOHN, BETATRON OPERATOR 


DWYER, LUKE, NIOSH 


FENSKE, MICHAEL 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


FREW, SUSAN 


FURLAN, BOB & SUE, BLOCKSON 


GATES, JOHN, RETIRED 


GATES, MARY LOU, BLOCKSON 


GISKERIE, CAROL, BLOCKSON 


GLOVER, SAM, NIOSH 


GRSKOVIC, CATHERINE, BLOCKSON 


GURA, CYRIL, BLOCKSON 


HALEY, TOM, NUMEC 


HARRAP, JOAN, ATTORNEY 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOPPE, BILL, DOW 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

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JAEGER, ZELDA, NIOSH 


JANKOSKI, GERALYNN, BLOCKSON 


JOHNSON, KAREN, WELDON SPRINGS 


KECA, PHYLLIS J. 


KOLLER, HARRIET 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


KRASOUZC, JERRY, NIOSH 


KURTZ, VIRGINIA A., BLOCKSON 


LEWIS, MARK, ATL 


MAHALIK, ROBERT, RETIRED 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MANLEY, JAMES E., RETIRED 


MARCOSKI, BEV, BLOCKSON 


MARTIN, ELGAR 


MARTIN, GERTRUDE 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCBIRCH, JAMES, NIOSH 


MCKEEL, DAN, SINEW 


NOAK, JOHN, U.S. REP. BIGGERT 


OZBOLT, YANES, NIOSH 


PARLER, RICH, NUMEC 


PETROVIC, ANTOINETTE, BLOCKSON 


PRESLEY, LOUISE S. 


RAMSPOTT, JOHN 


RECH, DON, NIOSH 


RIVERA, NANCY, BLOCKSON 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL, SAIC 


SCHNEIDER, MARILYN, WELDON SPRINGS 


SIEBERT, SCOTT R., MJW CORP 


SIMMONS, HOMER F., DOW 


THOMAS, IRENE, BLOCKSON 


WESTAN, RICHARD, CDC 


WITKOWSKI, JOHN A., BLOCKSON 


WORTHINGTON, PAT, DOE 


WRINGLE, HAROLD, BLOCKSON 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(8:30 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. ZIEMER: Good morning. People have been here all 


week and we are hopeful in getting efficiently 


through the items for -- for the morning. And 


I say for the morning because if we move with 


expediency, there may not be much of an 


afternoon of work, so we will proceed. 


SCIENCE ISSUES UPDATE
 

We have one item which we carried over. Our 


featured speaker, which we decided to cap our 


meeting with Dr. Jim Neton and to do this in 


the morning when everyone is bright-eyed, Jim. 


So here's our science issues update from Dr. 


Jim Neton. 


While Jim is setting up here and getting the 


mike on, a usual reminder. If you didn't do 


it, register your attendance with us. 


DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I know 


people have been anticipating this talk for... 


 DR. ZIEMER: For days. 


DR. NETON: For days they've been anticipating 

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this presentation so hopefully I won't -- I 


won't disappoint. 


We do science issues updates periodically. 
I 


think it's been some time since we've -- we've 


had the microphone and the opportunity to talk 


about what we've been doing behind the scenes 


to address some of the issues that -- that 


arise as part of the SC&A/Board review, as well 


as our own internal issues that we -- we 


discover during -- during the processing of 


cases. 


Just to remind everyone, I have a slide that 


talks about the issues, how -- what -- what -- 


these issues actually are encompassed by two 


broad categories, and those are the working 


issues that are related to the risk model, and 


those were evaluated by an Advisory Board 


working group -- oh, back in February 2005. 


They're all related to risk model calculations 


and right now, just so you know, we do track 


these. There are seven on the list that we're 


-- we're working on right now. 


And the other general category of these -- 


these issues fall under the dose reconstruction 


area, and these are issues that are dose 

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reconstruction-related but apply across almost 


all the sites. There's some overarching issue 


that would affect almost all claims. A good 


example of that is the super S issue, the 


highly insoluble plutonium. That affected a 


number of sites. Maybe not all sites, but a -- 


a very -- a large number of sites and 


claimants. 


For the most part these are issues that were 


identified during the review process, and we do 


have a list, we're tracking those, and right 


now we have ten -- ten issues on that list. 


I've listed here the risk model issues that we 


-- we are working on. I don't know if you can 


see it here, but the ones that are highlighted 


in blue are -- are the ones that either we've 


completed or have made significant progress and 


will be reporting to the Board a status fairly 


shortly. 


 The smoking adjustment for lung cancer, as you 


see is highlighted in blue, was taken care of 


some time ago. We presented to the Board, 


modified the IREP risk model to -- to do the 


two types of adjustments for lung cancer based 


on the new Pierce incidence data, and we've 

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moved forward and issued a PER on that and -- 


and that's completed. 


The bottom two -- we're getting close -- which 


is the addition of chronic lymphocytic 


leukemia, we worked very hard on the risk model 


with our -- our partners in the risk business ­

- SENES Oak Ridge, Incorporated. Hopefully I 


can report that to the Board in the near term. 


And the other one that I've highlighted is dose 


and dose rate effectiveness factor, which some 


of you may have noticed several months ago in 


Health Physics there was a fairly extensive 


review published by SENES Oak Ridge on the 


current status of knowledge of this -- of this 


parameter and -- and the, you know, where -- 


where we are with this and what -- we're using 


that as a springboard to determine where we 


might go with the DDREF calculation, and in 


particular bouncing that against what the BEIR 


VII committee had proposed. 


 That being said, I'm not going to say too much 


more about these issues today from this 


perspective, but I do have a couple -- risk 


model based issues that I -- I'd like to 


discuss with you. One is the -- periodically 

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we've reported to the Board the compensation 


rates by cancer -- by cancer model. It's of 


interest to the Board, and I know many 


stakeholders are curious about these numbers. 


Before I do show the data, there are some 


important caveats that we'd like to put out 


there, and these are listed here: 


They are results through September. We've only 


analyzed the data for claims that NIOSH 


received notice from the Department of Labor if 


it had been finally adjudicated. We didn't 


want to presume -- presume the end result, so 


these are -- these data represent about 12,400 


cases. And although we're fairly mature in the 


process now, the rates we've presented could be 


affected by the -- by the dose reconstruction 


efficiency process, although with 12,000 I 


think we've stabilized quite a bit. But again, 


if we're -- we're doing a lot of cases that are 


under 50 percent to screen through these 


things, it -- it might have some effect on the 


numbers, so they might not be predictive of 


future results. And unless otherwise noted, 


the rates reflect claims with only one primary 


cancer. That is, we can only really give you 

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some good numbers for where one primary cancer 


existed. Where there's multiple cancers, it 


can't be done. 


With that being said, there are -- if you 


recall, there are 32 individual IREP risk 


models that -- that we can -- we -- we use in 


our program. I've not included all the risk 


mod-- all the -- all the data for the 32. I'm 


only presenting the data here for the -- the 


ones that exceeded ten percent compensation 


rate, although attached to the back of your -- 


to my presentation, both at the Board level and 


at the back, is a supplement that presents a 


Excel spreadsheet that has all 32 listed there, 


with some more detailed information about the 


actual number of cases we've had and that sort 


of thing. 


So I'm just going to briefly go through the -- 


the first -- the ones that exceeded ten percent 


in our -- in our est-- in our calculation. And 


the highest one, which is not unexpected, is 


lung cancer. Lung cancer is compensated at a 


rate of about 70 percent. That's primarily due 


to the fact that -- I believe a lot of this has 


to do with the fact that when we do missed dose 

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calculations for people working with actinides, 


the missed dose is so large that it -- it puts 


these people into a very high missed dose 


category, oftentimes well over 100 rem, which 


ends up compensating lung cancer. 


So three out of the top five are leukemia 


cancers -- chronic myeloid leukemia, acute 


lymphocytic leukemia and acute myeloid 


leukemia. Those -- as you know, we have three 


separate risk models so they show up here. 


Those are -- are very high compensated -- it 


doesn't take a lot of exposure for leukemia 


cancer to be -- to be over 50 percent. 


 One thing that actually did surprise me when we 


put this together, and this has moved up on the 


-- on the scale since Russ Henshaw reported 


this a couple of years ago -- is now the 


existence of basal cell carcinoma, up here at 


57.8 percent. That's a pretty high 


compensation rate. I didn't expect that when 


we did this analysis, but fair-- fairly -- 


fairly good number of people are being 


compensated for basal cell carcinoma. 


Liver cancer was expected. That does -- that's 


a fairly radiogenic organ so that's up there. 

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And malignant melanoma is not too far behind 


basal cell carcinoma, 38.3 percent. 


Going down the list, other respiratory cancers, 


which would include tracheobronchus, those type 


of organs, definitely related to the -- the 


lung, 34 percent. Lymphoma is up there now. 


As you remember, you may recall we changed our 


lymphoma target organ approach, did a P-- a 


Program Evaluation Report on that, and now the 


lymphoma compensation rate is -- is 


substantially increased due to that change. If 


you recall, we will use the tracheobronchial 


lymph nodes as the organ -- if -- for an 


inhalation exposure, as the lymph organ to 


calculate the dose for and that -- that jacks 


up the dose quite a bit. 


Moving down, gall bladder, oral cavity and 


pharynx, eye, other endocrine glands -- some of 


these -- you do have to remember that there are 


small numbers, I think. When we get into the 


eye cancer model, there's a total of 24 eye 


cancers in -- in the -- in the pool, so you get 


into the small number statistics, and those 


numbers are all on the Excel spreadsheet that 


I've handed out. 

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On a more summary level, I've listed here the 


overall compensation rate for claims that have 


single primary cancer, that's 28 percent. When 


one has multiple primary cancers presented in 


the -- in the case, the -- the rate jumps up to 


43.7 percent, and that of course is due to the 


fact that we treat multiple primary cancers as 


if they're totally uncorrelated events, and so 


we account for that in the calculation. 


And if you lump them all together, the total 


compensation rate for all cases is 31.7 percent 


-- again, based on these 12,400 cases that are 


finally adjudicated. That number may be 


slightly different than what Larry Elliott 


presented yesterday, but he was looking at a -- 


a larger pool of cases, just so there's no 


confusion on that. 


Okay, the second issue I'd like to talk about 


today is a report that was -- NIOSH was asked 


to put together by the Senate, Senate Report 


Number 109-303. And in that report -- it was 


requested that NIOSH evaluate the radiogenecity 


of cancers that aren't on the presumptive 


cancer list. And if there were cancers we 


thought should be on the list, recommend the 

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type that could -- should be added. And if we 


did recommend ones, we should identify the 


number of current SEC cases, by facility, that 


would be included in the cancer -- if the -- 


that may be compensated if the cancer type was 


added to the list. 


So we did that. We reviewed 11 non-presumptive 


cancers that weren't on the list, and they're 


presented here. There are 11 listed here we 


reviewed. However, if -- if you note there -- 


if you notice, there's a footnote under rectum. 


It is a non-presumptive cancer; however, 


Department of Labor early on in the process 


consulted with the National Cancer Institute 


and the National Cancer Institute's 


determination was that colon and rectal cancer 


are substantially similar, so they should be 


treated with -- treated the same. And so for 


all intents and purposes, rectal cancer ends up 


being a presumptive cancer. So in fact, even 


though we looked at 11, we really only analyzed 


the data for ten because rectal cancer was 


already being compensated as a non-presumptive 


cancer. 


Okay, we focused our review using comprehensive 

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reviews of the literature. We thought -- we 


didn't want to rely on a single study because 


clearly there could have been a random 


association of some type. So we looked at 


comprehensive literature reviews that were 


primarily conducted in the mid to late '90s, 


early 2000. Those were reviews that were done 


by Elaine Ronn*, John Boice, Mettler and 


Upton*, and then there was an UNSCEAR review 


that was published in 2000 on radiogenecity of 


cancers. So we -- we took those four studies 


together and looked at them and compared where 


they agreed and where they didn't agree, and 


made our determination based on that review. 


As with most things that we do of this nature, 


we went out and obtained the review of five 


subject matter experts of our draft report. We 


got those expert opinions back and -- and 


addressed all the questions, consolidated it 


and issued a final report to the Senate 


Appropriations Committee just this June, a 


couple of months ago. 


During the time period that we were putting 


this report together UNSCEAR had a draft report 


that remained draft through the entire period 

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we were writing. We were hoping it would have 


been finalized and we could have used it, but 


it never did get finalized and we felt it would 


have been better to rely on that data. Even 


though we had knowledge of the draft report, we 


didn't want to base our recommendations on som­

- a draft that could change. So we committed 


in this report that we sent to Congress that we 


would update it -- send an update report -- I 


mean for the Senate Appropriations Committee -- 


once the UNSCEAR report became finalized. 


The bottom line was that we concluded that 


consistent evidence existed to support the 


radiogenecity of basal cell carcinoma. It 


shouldn't be any surprise. You saw on the 


compensation rate graph that I presented, basal 


cell carcinomas are being compensated at about 


a 56 percent -- over a 57 percent rate, by 


NIOSH anyways, and there was general agreement 


among the four studies we looked at that basal 


cell carcinoma was indeed radiogenic. Some 


level -- some debate as to the degree and -- 


and what-not, but in general we felt that there 


was fairly strong evidence, based on those four 


reports, that basal cell was radiogenic. 

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To some extent, malignant melanoma may have 


been, but there was conflicting evidence and it 


wasn't as strong, so we -- we went and 


recommended just the basal cell carcinoma at 


this time. 


To finish up on the request that Con-- that the 


Senate report asked, we looked at the cases 


that were in an SEC with basal cell carcinoma. 


We found that there were 1,985 claims -- this 


is as of June -- that were in an SEC that had 


at least one basal cell carcinoma. Now that 


sounds like a high number, but for -- about 60 


percent of these cases are in the 


Congressionally-created SEC at the gaseous 


diffusion plants. So 40 percent are from the 


ones that have been created by NIOSH through 


the Board process; 60 percent would -- are in 


the Congressionally-mandated SEC. Anyway, that 


-- it's a fairly large number, any way you look 


at it. But I would -- I do believe that many 


have already been compensated due to the -- 


through the dose reconstruction process, 


because again, over 50 percent of the basal 


cell carcinoma cancers that come through our 


dose reconstruction process are compensated 

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anyway, so the -- the dealt is not going to be 


quite that great. 


Okay, switching gears onto the second -- second 


aspect of what we looked at, which is the 


overarching dose reconstruction issues, I've 


presented a table here that has the -- the ten 


issues that are currently on our plate, as we 


see them. And again, in blue I've listed the 


ones that are completed or are very much 


nearing completion that we will present on in 


the near term. 


 The internal dose from super S has been done. 


We've issued a -- a TIB on that. We're working 


on the Program Evaluation Report to rework all 


those super S cases, and so this one is 


considered complete. 


The two that I'm going to talk about today are 


oro-nasal breathing and thoriated welding rods. 


Those are two on our list that I think we've -- 


we've done enough review and analysis to 


consider these complete. They will be issued 


as Technical Information Bulletins in the near 


term. That's not done yet, but we have all the 


information assembled and are ready to do that. 


And I hope to have at the next Board meeting 

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the workplace ingestion issue to talk about as 


being complete. 


Okay. Oro-nasal breathing is something that 


came about way back when in the Bethlehem Steel 


review. Seems like a decade ago, it was 


probably just a couple of years. We did a lit­

- we -- we worked with a contractor, EG&G, on 


this and some of you may know George Anastas* 


was the lead on this, and they did a very good 


job of surveying the literature for us on -- on 


this issue. They identified more than 80 


publications. They collected and reviewed 


these. A number of these were -- were 


applicable -- directly applicable to steel mill 


environments because this issue originated in 


Bethlehem Steel, but it was also -- the issue, 


as you'll see later when we get to discussing 


this, is -- is primarily applicable to, we 


believe, AWEs, Atomic Weapons Employers, and 


the reason will become apparent as we discuss 


this. 


They looked at the work practices and 


ventilation rates and evaluated both oro-nasal 


breathing and the appropriateness of the 


default ventilation rates. There was some 

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concern early on that even a heavy worker, 1.7 


cubic meter per hour breathing rate, was -- was 


not high enough for someone who worked in a 


steel mill environment. Turns out that you 


can't breathe much more than 1.7 cubic meters 


per hour without hyperventilating. There's a 


lot of good physiological data out there that 


would pro-- that shows that it would be very 


difficult to do that, and that's all included 


in the -- in the report. I won't go into it in 


detail in this presentation, though. 


Okay, I don't want to make internal 


dosimetrists out of everyone, but I thought I ­

- I'd frame the issue here. This is the 


general biokinetic model that (unintelligible) 


ICRP-66. There's only three ways material can 


get into the body. You can either eat it, 


ingest it; you can inhale it, or it can come in 


via a wound or absorb through the skin. Of 


course with oro-nasal breathing we're concerned 


about inhalation. And it's somewhat intuitive, 


the more material that gets deposited deep in 


the respiratory tract will get transferred to 


the bloodstream and reside in the various 


organs. So the more you get directly into the 

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respiratory tract, the higher the dose is going 


to be, and that's exactly the issue that occurs 


with oro-nasal breathing. 


This is a little finer blow-up on the lung 


model, and you see we have the extrathoracic 


region one, ET1, and the extrathoracic region 


two. What happens in oro-nasal breathing is 


you bypass this ET1 which is the nose and the 


nasal region up here. The material comes in 


directly through the mouth and deposits in the 


lung. So you -- what you end up doing is you 


lose this filtration capacity of the upper -- 


upper and -- airways of the nose and -- and the 


back of the throat. So what happens is for 


every atom or so that you breathe in through 


the mouth, there is a corresponding higher 


deposition in the lung than if you breathed 


some in the nose that would be subsequently 


cleared and swallowed. 


In fact, that's very well brought out if you 


look at some of the numbers. This presents the 


fraction of the -- of an intake that's breathed 


through the nose for a nasal augmenter or a 


mouth breather -- a nasal augmenter being a 


normal person who breathes primarily through 

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their nose. And as you can see, for sleep, 


rest, light exercise, 100 percent is considered 


to be -- have -- breathe through the nose for a 


nasal augmenter, and it's 70 percent for sleep 


and rest for the mouth breather, goes down to 


40 percent for the -- for light exercise, and 


down to 30 percent for heavy exercise. 


 Interestingly enough, you know, they're -- 


they're called mouth breathers, but reality is 


that even a mouth breather breathes 70 percent 


of the time through the nose. But what -- you 


can see here is -- is if you look at the ratio 


of the mouth through the nose for light 


exercise, which is what we use predominantly in 


our models, versus how much goes through the 


mouth, you can see that the ratio here is about 


a factor of two and a half. 


Well, we did a comparison of what would be the 


dose difference if you breathed -- if you were 


a -- a nasal augmenter or a mouth breather, and 


that's what's presented here. The first column 


here is a 50-year dose for a nasal augmenter, 


and this is the 50-year dose to various organs 


for a habitual mouth breather, and this third 


column is the ratio of the dose for a nasal 

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augmenter to habitual mouth breather. And you 


can see they're all around, interestingly 


enough, close to two and a half, which makes 


some intuitive sense, except for organs like 


the colon which are not directly involved in 


the respiratory tract deposition region. You 


know, the colon is a little bit lower. 


So the bottom line is there is a -- there is a 


fairly large difference in the dose. Of course 


we use annual doses in this program, not 50­

year doses, but it's much easier to compare -- 


Dr. Poston? 


 DR. POSTON: Are these data from ICRP-66 -- 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


 DR. POSTON: -- is this what you're doing? 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


 DR. POSTON: I know you don't use heavy 


exercise, but that looks strange to me. 


DR. NETON: What, the 50 percent that breathe 


through the nose for heavy exercise? 


 DR. POSTON: Yeah, most of the time when you 


exercise, when you begin -- you almost breathe 


totally through your mouth when you get into 


heavy exercise, you're running and so forth. 


In fact, that's a -- a threshold, when you 

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start breathing through your mouth instead of 


through your nose. 


DR. NETON: Right. Well, I think -- I think we 


need to look at what heavy exercise is defined 


as. That's 1.7 cubic meters per hour, which is 


equivalent to pushing a wheelbarrow with a 75 


kilogram weight. 


 DR. POSTON: Oh, well, that's different. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. POSTON: That's not -- that's not heavy 


exer--


DR. NETON: Well, that's -- that's the -- well, 


that's the definition that the ICRP has used. 


I mean that's my interpretation of what heavy 


exercise is, 1.7 cubic meters per hour. But 


I've read in the literature that it's like 


pushing a wheelbarrow with a 75 kilogram 


weight, something like that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Along those same lines, Jim, the 


light exercise nasal augmenter? 


DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm surprised it doesn't have any 


change, it's --


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- point zero, so -- that's 

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correct? It's not a -- 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I just checked that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. NETON: So -- at any rate, there is a 


factor of two -- two or more difference between 


-- between these two, so clearly there -- there 


is something that we need to think about when 


we're doing these dose reconstructions. 


 MS. MUNN: Is there a reason (unintelligible) 


use uranium (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Use your mike, Wanda. 


DR. NETON: I'm sorry? 


 MS. MUNN: Was there a reason uranium-234 was 


used for that analysis? 


DR. NETON: It was a convenient example. We 


believe that this is relevant mostly to AWEs, 


and uranium is the predominant nuclide of 


exposure at the Atomic Weapons Employer 


facilities -- 234 was just conven-- is 


convenient. It could have been 238. It 


wouldn't really make a difference in the 


calculations. And again, 6.44 times ten to the 


sixth picocuries I think has to do with -- I 


suspect that this is the Bethlehem Steel annual 


inhalation that we use in the model. Again, 

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those numbers are just for reference. It would 


be the same for -- for any level of intake we 


chose. 


But when you do a -- dose reconstructions, we ­

- we approach them in two different ways. We 


can either use air sample data to calculate the 


dose, or we can rely on bioassay data. When we 


rely on air sample data at an AWE facility, 


which is about ten percent of our cases, we use 


-- I don't want to say exclusively, but I can't 


think of a case where if we just had general 


air sample data and we can't position workers 


about the plant, we would use the 95th 


percentile of the observed distribution of the 


-- of the air sample data. And based on what 


we just looked at in the previous slide, oronasal breathing does definitely increase the 


dose per unit intake. That is, when you give a 


certain intake, it's going to be higher for an 


oro-nasal breather. 


But -- and I'll talk about this in a little bit 


-- the increase in the uncertainty of the dose 


estimate, however, is extremely small. Just 


keep that thought in mind. I'm going to go 


through these two scenarios individually. 

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For bi-- when we -- we reconstruct doses using 


bioassay data, this is almost exclusively the 


way we approach internal dose at DOE 


facilities, which is about 90 percent of our 


cases, where if we -- if we don't have a 


monitored worker, we'll use a coworker 


distribution, oro-nasal breathing does not 


increase the dose per unit excretion, which is 


-- which is an interesting observation. Now 


let me go through these two separately and I'll 


-- I'll give you -- I'll fill in the details. 


 Here's an example of an air sample 


distribution. I believe this is the Bethlehem 


Steel facility; I'm not 100 percent certain but 


that 553 MAC sure rings a bell. I think that's 


-- that's Bethlehem Steel. The distribution 


here is a lognormally distributed distribution 


of -- of data points. As I mentioned, we 


typically would go up here to the 95 


percentile, which is 553 MAC. That's somewhere 


in the range of 40,000 dpm uranium per cubic 


meter. Whereas if you look at the -- this 


would be -- the Z score of zero would be the 


median value of this distribution, and that's 


somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple of 

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hundred. So we're way out here assigning this 


worker's dose. And in fact the geometric 


standard deviation on this distribution is 


somewhere around eight. It's huge. There's a 


large spread in the data. Those of you who 


work with geometric spreads know a GSD of eight 


is -- is huge. It's essentially -- the data -- 


at one standard deviation is times eight and 


divided by eight. That's the range for one 


standard deviation. 


As I said, we use the 95th. They have a --


these distributions typically have a very large 


geometric standard deviation. We assume the 


exposure for the entire work shift. We don't 


take out any -- we don't make any allowance for 


lunch breaks, you know, coffee breaks, smoke 


breaks, anything of that nature. And this says 


at Simonds Saw and Steel the GSD was 8.37. I 


think that might have been Bethlehem Steel, but 


either way, it's -- it's one of -- it's a 


representative facility. 


We went and looked at a study that Wesley Bolch 


did of the estimated geometric standard 


deviation for the -- for lung deposition, 


including mouth breathing. In other words, how 

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-- how variable is the deposition in the lung 


for the entire ICRP-66 model, including the 


deposition in the lung due to mouth -- the 


variability due to mouth breathing. And he 


came up with a GSD of about one and a half. So 


remember, the GSD on the air sample data is -- 


is over eight. The GSD on the overall 


distribution for the lung model is one and a 


half. 


So if you propagate that uncertainty -- in 


other words, we're trying to get to the upper 


end of the -- the 95th percentile of the 


distribution of air samples, you propagate that 


additional one and a half GSD in with the GSD 


of eight, you increase the overall uncertainty 


at the upper end by 6.5 percent. It's a very 


small percentage in increase. In fact, in this 


particular example the increase in the 


uncertainty results in a minimal increase in 


the intake of the 95th percentile. It's 


equivalent to a worker taking a 40-minute 


break, so in other words, it's not making a 


huge difference. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- I -- I follow your 


example. Is that a representative example, 

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though? The GSD of eight seems extr-- on your 


extreme side. 


DR. NETON: I'd say when we --


 MR. GRIFFON: Usually like three, don't you? 


Or is... 


DR. NETON: For air sample data, when we use -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Air sample data, is that what -- 


DR. NETON: -- (unintelligible) I don't think 


so. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that spread for all these 


things? 


DR. NETON: I can't say for certain that 


they're all eight, but they're all pretty 


large, and it's not -- it's greater than three. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I mean I follow this 


example, but I wonder if it's representative of 


everything we're looking at, so... 


DR. NETON: We're going to -- as I mentioned, 


we're going to write this approach up in a -- 


in a Technical Information Bulletin that I'm 


sure the Board would -- as part of the process 


-- the review process, ask SC&A to -- to take a 


look at, but we're prepared to formally 


document this at this point. 


Now the interesting thing, and this just 

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occurred to me one night, was when you're using 


bioassay data, it's different. Because if you 


think about it, you can only -- what comes out 


in the urine is directly proportional to how 


much was deposited in the lung and became 


suspended. So what we did was we took ICRP 54 


biokinetics with type S uranium -- I'm not sure 


why that says Y -- and -- and looked at the 


excretion rate for a light worker who's a nasal 


augmenter. And sure enough, his excretion very 


quickly went down and became consistent -- it 


was a consistent ratio between the nasal 


augmenter and the mouth breather consistently 


over time, which was quickly stabilized at 


about two and a half, which is directly related 


to the amount of dep-- difference in the 


deposition. It makes intuitive sense, but 


unless you think about this in the right terms, 


you wouldn't necessarily think about -- so what 


this -- it really means, then, is that it's 


self-correcting. Whatever comes out in the 


urine, you -- you use to estimate your intake. 


You will -- you will end up with a higher 


intake because you're -- you're correcting it 


for the difference in the amount that's coming 

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out in the urine. So this is interesting. 


So this means that the -- the oro-nasal 


breathing issue, when you relay on bioassay 


data, doesn't really come into play. It's 


self-correcting, based on interpretation of the 


bioassay data, which was a -- kind of an 


interesting realization on our part. 


So in conclusion -- on this one issue, at least 


-- we believe the 66 lung model's acceptable 


for use in dose reconstruction as it is. When 


using air sample data the increase in the 95th 


percentile is small compared to GSD of air 


samples. And I agree with Mark, we need to 


demonstrate that this is more universally 


acceptable than just the one example I 


provided, but I do believe it will come out 


that way. 


 And the second point is that if we're using 


bioassay data, the increase in the urinary 


output compensates for the increase in dose so 


that it comes out in the wash. 


Okay, that's what I had to say on oro-nasal 


breathing. 


We'll move on to a -- even a simpler issue, I 


think, and that is the -- it -- it came to our 

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attention that thoriated welding rods -- well, 


we've known this all along, that welding rods 


have thorium in them, but we hadn't been 


including them in dose reconstructions. And 


the question logically came up: Well, why not? 


And so we did a quick analysis of this and -- a 


little bit of background first. 


Thor-- thorium is used in tungsten inert gas 


arc welding. They're at -- the electrodes 


starting about 1951. And it's about one to two 


percent thorium by weight in -- in these rods. 


And you've got the entire natural spectrum of 


thorium in there -- thorium-228, 230, 232. The 


ratio of thorium-232 is less than .2 -- this is 


important dosimetrically. The ratio of 


thorium-228 to 232 ranges anywhere from .4 to 


one. 


 Well, fortunately the NRC had recognized this 


early on and did some analysis of this, so we 


took advantage of their -- of their effort. 


And by and large, our -- our analysis is based 


on the work that was done in NUREG 1717. In 


that analysis they evaluated dose from 


inhalation during direct current welding in 


four different studies, and the average annual 

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intake estimated from those studies was about 


ten picocuries of thorium, with a committed 


dose to bones and lungs of, as you see there, 


three and six millirem -- pretty small dose. 


That's a 50-year dose, not -- not the annual 


incremental dose. 


They also said well, not only do workers 


receive exposure from direct welding, they also 


receive exposure from grinding the tips. 


Apparently when you're doing welding you have 


to grind your tips to, I don't know, sharpen 


them or something. I'm not -- I've never done 


this, but there was a grinding exposure pathway 


that they evaluated. And in their model they 


assumed grinding for one minute per hour for 


1,000 hours, which generated .3 picocuries per 


cubic meter dust loading or air -- air loa-- 


air concentration. And the committed dose to 


bone and lungs was -- was somewhat similar to 


that from the direct welding, two millirem to 


bone and three millirem to lungs. 


Based on this analysis, NRC has -- has exempted 


thoriated rods from licensing. The dose was 


considered to be too small to consider to be 


hazardous enough to worry about having a 

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license to control this use -- this -- this 


process. 


They did also look at the dose to non-welders. 


In other words, you have people in the 


environment of these welders. And as you 


expect, the dose from people in the vicinity of 


these welding operations was -- was much less 


than one-third to that of the welder. So not 


only was there not a problem with the welders 


themselves in grinding the tips, but the people 


in the general environment of the welding as it 


occurred. 


So -- so based on this analysis, the annual 


dose -- we also want to point out that these 


are 50-year committed doses, and very rarely do 


you end up with a 50-year dose applied in our ­

- our dose reconstructions because we take from 


the day of the first employment to date of 


cancer diagnosis, and we do annual doses. So 


these would be parsed out over annual 


increments, so those annual doses would be much 


less than these two, three-millirem committed 


doses. 


And so for chronic exposure over 50 years, the 


annual dose approximately equals a CEDE, which 

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would be less than ten millirem over any given 


year. So when we do an overestimate of a dose, 


the increase in dose would be trivial. For a 


best estimate, the dose is small and certainly 


within the range of uncertainty we assign for 


these which is typically a GSD of three. 


So we feel that this exposure pathway is -- is 


not a significant exposure pathway that -- that 


needs to be considered in the dose 


reconstructions for -- for workers in this 


program. 


And I think with that, that concludes my formal 


remarks, but I'd be happy to answer any 


questions. 


 Dr. Lockey? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Use the mike, Jim, please. 


 DR. LOCKEY: It's a fascinating presentation. 


I wanted to ask you about the -- the cancers. 


When you looked at bone, what -- what were you 


looking at when you looked at bone? Is that 


primary bone or is that metastatic bone, or a 


combination? 


DR. NETON: See, bone cancer -- metastatic bone 


is -- is covered under this program, is it not? 


That's right, so it's a combination. 

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 DR. LOCKEY: So that's not -- that -- that may 


be -- represents mostly metastatic rather than 


primary bone cancer? 


DR. NETON: I can't answer that. I don't know. 


 DR. LOCKEY: And under -- under -- on your last 


page, I was looking at that. You have urinary 


cancers -- urinary organ, excluding bladder. 


Is that -- is that kidney and prostate under 18 


rank, 18? That's on your very last page. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. Yeah. 


 DR. LOCKEY: So that's kidney and bladder. 


Correct? 


DR. NETON: No, bladder is down here -- it's 


got its own model --


 DR. LOCKEY: Or kidney and prostate, that's 


kidney and prostate. 


DR. NETON: No, pros-- prostate is included in 


all male genitalia. That's category number 24. 


Those are lumped together as one. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Okay, so 24 is prostate and 18 is 


then -- I -- I assume that's just kidney. 


Right? 


DR. NETON: Kidney, correct. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Okay. 


DR. NETON: I mean it may be ureter, I'm -- I'm 

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really not certain. I could get that for you, 


though. Whatever those ICD-9 codes -- well, 


it's actually ICD-9 code -- whatever's ICD-9 


code 189, which I assume is kidneys. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Very good. Thank you. 


DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler? 


DR. ROESSLER: Jim, I'm on the list of cancers 


also, and you listed the three different types 


of leukemia, and then one category just said 


leukemia. 


DR. NETON: Right. 


DR. ROESSLER: I don't --


DR. NETON: That's -- when -- if the diagnosis 


comes over and we can't tell one of the three 


types, there is a general leukemia risk model 


that we would apply. 


DR. ROESSLER: So then for leukemia, you'd just 


add all those categories together. 


DR. NETON: That would be total leukemias, 


that's correct. 


DR. ROESSLER: All right. I understand then. 


Okay. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. Interesting -- I didn't 


point this out, but under all male genitalia, 

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that includes prostate cancer, and I would -- I 


would venture to guess that it's mostly 


prostate cancer in those numbers. And there 


are a total of 1,800 out of the 12,000 cases 


that we received were prostate cancer cases, 


and the compensation rate is not zero. It's 


two -- 2.7 percent in that category. I -- I 


did -- I did point out but I think I had on my 


slide, there's a couple of cancers that are 


still at zero percent. I think it was ovaries 


and female genitalia. But those are -- those 


are also based on small numbers, if you look at 


-- oh, yeah, 57 ovary case-- ovary cancer 


cases. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have a comment and -- and 


-- and then a question. I -- I read your 


report to the Senate about the -- the list of 


cancers, and -- and I was disappointed in the 


report in the -- to the extent that you real-- 


I don't think you really sort of provided the 


proper explanation and -- for -- so what is 


radiogenic, 'cause it's -- 'cause radiogenic 


really has to do with the nature of the 


exposure. So even if you look at your current 

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list, I believe oral cavity, pharyngeal cancer 


is not a -- considered to be a radiogenic 


cancer, but you're compensating I think tw-- 


over 20 percent of them. It has to -- I think 


it's a -- a -- I won't say an artifact, but 


it's the nature of the exposures in -- in 


different facilities. And unfortunately when 


we ap-- apply this general list to facilities 


that are so diverse in terms of exposures that 


there are situations where that list may not be 


the appropriate list or there may be cancers 


that are overcompensated, so to speak, or 


undercompensated, be-- simp-- simply because -- 


partic-- the nature of the exposures in that 


facility would -- would tend to in-- involve 


cancers like, you know, oral cavity and -- and 


pharyngeal that aren't on that list. There 


would be a higher risk for them because 


radiogen-- I mean radiogenic is -- you know, 


how do you define it? And --


DR. NETON: Well, radiogenic -- the definition 


of radiogenecity has nothing to do with the 


number of cancers. I guess I'm confused by 


your comment. I mean it's rea-- if -- we -- we 


took it from the perspective is -- is there 

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scientific evidence in these epidemiologic 


studies that indicate the cancer itself is 


caused by ionizing radiation. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right, and -- and --


DR. NETON: In fact, many cancers on the list ­

- we don't know. We did not make the original 


list. That was a list that was provided to us 


in the Act, if you recall. 


 DR. MELIUS: No, I -- I recognize that, but the 


-- it -- it's an artifact of -- of what's in 


the literature that was used to generate the -- 


the initial list, and -- 


DR. NETON: Well, I'm not sure --


 DR. MELIUS: -- and I think if you read the 


more -- more recent -- most recent BEIR report, 


I think there's an explanation for that and -- 


and how -- how it is in essence an artifact. 


I'm not saying that -- that you can do 


something necessarily different 'cause I think 


it's hard, because you have such a diversity of 


sites out there. But I think there should be 


some ex-- explanation for the -- you know, some 


of the shortcomings of applying that kind of a 


list to -- to the -- to the DOE and A-- AWE 


facilities and -- to that. I mean it's like -- 

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it's sim-- simple, you know, you take the same 


-- the same thing if you look at, you know, the 


BEIR report, whatever. I mean there's lim-- 


limited amounts of scientific information for 


particular exposures -- scenarios and -- and -- 


or types of exposure and -- and we just -- you 


know, there's only so much you can say and then 


DR. NETON: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: I -- I would point out that -- you 


know, you raise a good point, that there are 


cancers that are often considered not 


radiogenic that are being compensated in this 


program at a fairly high rate. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


DR. NETON: I believe that's more an artifact 


of the compensation rate being decided at the 


99th percentile more than anything. In fact, 


if you look at the central estimate of the risk 


model for many cancers on this program, it's 


very near zero. It could even be negative at 


the best estimate, and still be paid some value 


-- some positive value at the 99th percentile. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and --

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DR. NETON: I think that's -- that's part of 


the (unintelligible). 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I think -- I think that's 


another factor, and I -- I just -- wanted to 


just argue is you should have explained that in 


your report --


DR. NETON: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: -- 'cause I don't think that's the 


-- the impression that -- and -- and I don't 


think it explains the discrepancy between the 


rate at which you're compensating particular 


cancers and -- and what's on that, you know, 


so-called radiogenic list. 


DR. NETON: I appreciate the feedback. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, it's -- it's a comment. 


Take it for whatever. 


I also have a question, and that's -- I believe 


at one point you were working on a model for 


CLL. 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: And I'm -- what's the status of 


that? 


DR. NETON: Right, I -- we -- we are -- we are 


-- we're in the development stage of that 


model. We actually have a version of IREP -- a 

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test version with a model that we -- we've 


developed and are examining it for -- to see if 


it makes sense, to use a non-scientific term. 


And I hope that we can report on that in the 


near term, but it's not going to be quick, 


probably be six months down the line, somewhere 


in that ra-- we -- we have gone out and -- and 


polled the scientific community, five subject 


matter experts like we normally do, as to 


should chronic lymphocytic leukemia be -- be 


considered as -- as a radiogenic cancer. We 


have that information back. We've evaluated it 


with sufficient information -- feedback from us 


to go to see if we should -- could develop a 


risk model. This is about as far as I can go 


with it, but -- until we can get the risk model 


tweaked and have a definitive model that 


appears to work, we can't go any further. 


 DR. MELIUS: Am I over-interpreting, but are -- 


so you -- you have decided that you will -- you 


are developing the risk model. 


DR. NETON: There are two things that have to 


happen for us to put CLL on the -- on the -- to 


recommend adding it to the list, and that is, 


is it potentially radiogenic; and if -- if we 

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believe it is, is there a credible risk model 


that can be developed to (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, let me make a correction 


here. We're not -- we're not asking the 


subject matter experts if it's radiogenic. 


We're asking can we put together -- can we 


develop a risk model that makes sense and is 


scientifically defensible. Okay? The risk 


model could be done and it -- and it -- have 


real low risk coefficients, and that's -- you 


know, maybe that's the way it'll come out. So 


we're -- that's what we're looking at. We're 


not -- we're not asking subject matter experts 


to determine the radiogenecity. We're asking 


can we develop a risk model that is 


scientifically defensible. 


DR. NETON: And one -- I'm sorry -- I mean 


Larry's right, I mis-- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, no, tha-- tha-- tha-- and 


it's a question of -- of the amount of data, so 


I mean --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, the amount of data -- 


 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) BEIR has a -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- is at issue. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, BEIR has a number of risk 

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models for non-radiogenic -- so-called 


radiogenic --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Right, right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- cancers, so --


 MR. ELLIOTT: So that -- that's the -- that's 


the prime issue. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Do we have enough data to develop 


risk coefficients from. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, so built into that is the 


issue of having a risk coefficient, which means 


that there's some kind of a risk estimate 


that's based on some data. So sort of 


inherently -- I think one might argue that if 


you can show that there's a risk coefficient 


which says that there's a relationship between 


cancer and dose, that that might argue for 


radiogenecity. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, it's not -- it's not how 


it's done. I would simply (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it's not how it's done, but 


I think Larry is saying -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- without a risk coefficient, we 


don't have a model to use. And --

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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah, I (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and a risk coefficient implies 


that relationship, yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: So what will happen next, if we 


determine we have a viable risk model? 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We would put forward a rule-


making change and seek the Board's involvement 


in that. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, I --


 MR. GRIFFON: Can I --


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark (unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: Just a little -- just a little 


clarification on -- on -- I guess process on 


that. Do you -- you have a -- a draft model 


that was developed, or -- or you're asking 


experts whether a draft model -- a model can be 


developed? I'm not sure -- do you have a draft 


model in hand? Was it developed by maybe SENES 


or -- or --


DR. NETON: We have various models in 


development. I mean there's not just one. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and are the--


DR. NETON: It's complicated because, you know 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- what is the target organ, also, 


for chronic lymphocytic leukemia? The medical 


literature --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- is very unclear. Is -- is it --


is it a cancer that originates in the -- in the 


bone marrow system itself, or is it a cancer 


originates in the lymph system? I mean there ­

- it's just -- it's not very well-defined and 


we're learning that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but -- but -- and the 


experts are -- are being asked to -- just a 


broad set of questions, or are they -- are they 


actually reviewing a draft model -- 


DR. NETON: No, no, not --


 MR. ELLIOTT: They're not reviewing a draft 


model. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right now they're just being 


asked the broad questions. 


DR. NETON: That's right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Right now they've been asked is 


there enough data to support development of a 


risk model and risk coefficients therein. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. John Poston. 

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 DR. POSTON: Jim, can you say a little bit more 


about the DDREF? It seems to me, maybe I'm 


wrong, that if you apply DDREF, then the 


estimated doses are going to go down. And you 


know, while I'm all for scientific accuracy and 


so forth, but we always hear the word 


compensable and -- and so forth used when we're 


doing these evaluations, and so I'm a little 


confused as -- why --


DR. NETON: It's not --


 DR. POSTON: While I welcome that, I'm still a 


little bit confused when we're trying to be 


compensable. 


DR. NETON: It's -- it's not that we're trying 


to find whether we should or should not use a 


DDREF. It's what is the distribution that 


should be applied to it. In other words, you 


know, there's a central -- there's a central 


estimate that's applied, and I honestly can't 


remember off the top of my head right now what 


it is, and there's a certain -- there's an 


uncertainty range put about that. SENES has 


gone and looked at the more recent literature 


to determine, you know, are there more credible 


values that could be included in this 

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uncertainty distribution, and the jury is still 


out. We don't know whether it would tend to 


move the central estimate lower or higher, but 


-- but we're looking very closely at it. And 


there's also a unique twist to this in the 


sense that -- no one's looked at it from this 


perspective before -- there's a -- there's some 


connection between RBE and radiation 


effectiveness factors that -- you know, they 


almost are -- are looking at the same issues, 


and we're trying to tease that out a little 


bit. You know, as you go down in energy, the 


RBE seems to go up, the REF goes up and is that 


really a DDREF issue or is that a radiation 


effectiveness factor issue and -- and we're 


looking at that very closely and -- and we'll 


see where we -- where we land on this. 


 DR. POSTON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


DR. NETON: Yeah, the DDREF that we developed 


is unique to this program. I mean it's --


 DR. POSTON: Well, I -- I commend you for 


trying that. But as you well know, the RBEs 


for even a single type of radiation vary maybe 


up to a factor of 100, and the RBEs are wei-- 


radiation weighting factors are just chosen as 

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sort of -- some median position in the 


distribution. 


DR. NETON: Well, we've developed our own 


unique distribution for every radiation type in 


this program. 


 DR. POSTON: And the DDREF is also distributed 


some way that you -- and are you going to look 


at individual organs or you -- how are you 


going to -- I mean --


DR. NETON: I don't think --


 DR. POSTON: -- how far are you going to break 


this thing down? 


DR. NETON: I -- I hear you. I don't think we 


can go down to the individual organ level, but 


-- but, you know, we're trying to figure out 


what the literature says. I mean that's what 


we do. We look back and developments and the 


literature and see what it tells us. 


 DR. POSTON: Well, the other question or 


concern I have is, you know, in -- in our 


control approaches we look at 50-year committed 


dose and you've -- you're doing annual doses. 


And so, again, that's another factor that may 


just muddy the water completely. 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 

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 DR. POSTON: Be interesting to see. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- just -- I think this is 


the last one, Jim. You -- you mentioned in 


your first slide smoking adjustment for lung 


cancer. I can remember a workgroup meeting -- 


I think it was the first Mallinckrodt workgroup 


meeting -- where I asked about adjusting the 


other way for -- ICRP-60 does have some 


statements about adjustments for -- I think 


they -- I forget the -- what they call the 


factor, but their -- they question as to 


whether smokers would retain materials in the 


lung longer, and it's not intuitively obvious, 


at least to me, whether that's going to 


increase dose or decreases 'cause there's a 


couple of competing factors there. But there 


are some factors suggestive of ICRP-60 on 


adjusting that retention in the lung because 


you -- you -- of smoking experience, rather 


than adjusting on the epi side. I understand 


that's what you've looked at, and have you 


looked at the IMBA --


DR. NETON: No, we haven't (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the internal dose side at all, 

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and I -- if -- if not, I would suggest we might 


want to look at that. 


DR. NETON: You know, I honestly don't recall 


that issue, but I'm sure it did, I 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: I brought it up. Dave Allen 


brought ICRP-60 into the meeting, actually, and 


we -- we talked about it briefly, but we never 


sort of --


DR. NETON: It's certainly an interesting issue 


to look at. We haven't -- we haven't looked 


at that at all, though. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions, comments? 


 (No responses) 


 Jim, thank you very much for a very interesting 


update. We look forward to the outputs from 


some of these. 


NIOSH WEB SITE UPDATE
 

Next we'll go to NIOSH web site update, and 


Chris Ellison is going to tell us what's 


happening there. Chris? 


 MS. ELLISON: Good morning. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning. 


 MS. ELLISON: I believe it's been a while since 


I've given a presentation on the web site, so I 

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know this morning there are some issues that 


you all would like to have addressed regarding 


transcripts and minutes. But before we get 


into that, I -- I know that there's some new 


Board members and I don't think we've ever done 


any web site tips and tricks for anyone 


recently, and the web site seems to be growing 


by leaps and bounds so let's spend a few 


minutes to go over some navigation things for 


you all to hopefully help you find things on 


the web site. 


You should have received in your packets a 


handout, and it's what's up here on the screen. 


And I put this together for you all to -- to 


give you somewhat of an idea of how to navigate 


through the web site, and I think it's best if 


I -- I try to show you some of this. 


Just to point out the magnitude of the 


information on the web site, currently there's 


126 individual web pages on our web site. And 


from the time I had put this document together 


-- at that time we had just under 2,000 PDF 


documents. That number's now right around 


2,002, 2,003, and it's going to jump again 


today. And of those, currently there's about 

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419 of those deal with Board activities. That 


includes your minutes, your transcripts, SC&A 


documents and those sort of things that I've 


lumped together in that number. 


 Something else that's new with the web site, 


and I hope that you all are receiving these -- 


we've started a notification system. And each 


time the web site is updated, I send out an e-


mail notification letting people know what page 


has been updated and then I tell you what 


section on that page has been updated and the 


information that's new, or what has changed. 


And you don't have to tell me now, but if 


you're not receiving those messages for some 


reason, please let me know because I think 


that's vital to what you do to receive that 


information on what's being updated. So -- and 


then the other thing, just to let you know how 


I work the web site, information that is 


submitted to me -- I do try to get it up and 


posted on the web site that day. I can post 


things anywhere up to about 2:30 in the 


afternoon, so -- and it -- once I get done with 


my job, I have to push it on to -- to be 


updated, so... 

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Now the rest of that packet that I have given 


you, it contains some tips and tricks on 


recommended pages. And forgive me, the version 


that I have on my laptop is running off of a CD 


because they could not provide me with a land 


line for the internet, so mine is not quite up 


to date, but I have as much of the web site as 


I could load on my CD. 


 One thing that's important to know with the web 


site, and I hope you all kind of figured this 


out, is our navigation system. And if you 


look, it's up on the right side of the screen, 


each page has three sections to the navigation 


system. It always has this section here at the 


top that says "on this page," and that'll tell 


you the topics that are on the page you are 


currently on. 


The next section to the navigation bar contains 


the claimant corner, and we've kind of put 


together information in that section of the 


navigation bar that we think the claimants are 


interested in, their claim information, some 


commonly-used acronyms and those sort of things 


that we think that thi-- this is the top order 


of what the claimants might want to come to our 

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web site for. 


And then down below, on the navigation bar's 


third section -- which is quite lengthy and 


it's just the overall directory. The Advisory 


Board link is on there under that section, and 


there are some -- some links that are in both 


the claimant corner and down there on the OCAS 


directory. We just wanted to make sure people 


find the information that they need. 


And now on to some of the -- the pages of 


interest. One of the things that I think 


you're most interested in is finding 


information on specific work sites. I believe 


it was up until somewhere around the end of 


2005, if you wanted to find a site profile, a 


technical information document -- TIB, TBD -- 


you had to go to the page on technical 


information documents. If you wanted to find 


something out on an SEC on a site, you had to 


go to the SEC page. Something that we've 


created -- and they're fairly new, but I'm 


hoping the -- the use of them gets picked up. 


Under the claimant corner there is a link 


called list of work sites. I highly recommend 


that -- if you're looking for information on a 

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site, that you go to that link. 


If you go to the SEC page, if you go to the 


technical documents used in dose reconstruction 


page, you're going to find information -- these 


same links, and they're all going to link you 


to what we call our site pages. The difference 


in -- and this list is most comprehensive, and 


the difference between it -- there are some 


sites that we only have SEC information on. 


There are some sites that have both technical 


documents and SEC. If you go to those site 


pages, you're going to find all the information 


that we have developed on those sites. If SC&A 


has done a technical report on a document 


pertaining to a site, it's going to be on those 


site pages. 


For instance, let me go to one -- let's pick a 


good one. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 MS. ELLISON: I'm sorry? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Rocky Flats. 


 MS. ELLISON: Rocky Flats, I can go to Rocky 


Flats. And again, on this page you're going to 


see up there where it tells you "on this page," 

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you're going to find site profile, if there's 


any TIBs the TIBs will be there. The Program 


Evaluation Reports or the Program Evaluation 


Plans, worker outreach activities, comments on 


the Rocky Flats documents -- I'm going to bump 


there real quick -- and if you look there at 


that third bullet, there's the information that 


SC&A has presented on Rocky Flats. So it is 


also located on that page. 


I was trying to think what else. Some -- I --


I receive comments about the web site, and I 


know one of the things that people are having 


issues finding, if you look -- if you look 


right here under -- this is back on the list of 


web sites page. If you look back here under 


AWE site-wide documents, the -- the TBD-6000 


and 6001, those are not specific to a site. 


Those are specific to Atomic Weapons Employers 


in general, so there are the links to those 


documents. 


If you're familiar with those documents, they 


have a lot of appendices. The appendices cover 


individual sites. For instance, GSI is one of 


them. If you look on this list of work sites, 


it is also listed. It will take you to that 

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document and you can scroll down to the 


appendices. So if you're looking for site 


information, I highly recommend using the list 


of work sites pages. Like I said, those -- 


those individual work site pages will get you 


to all that information I think you might be 


looking for. 


Also another alternative for you is -- my 


little mouse doesn't want to work -- it's 


either in the claimant corner section or you 


can also find this link down lower on the OCAS 


directory. We have a help A to Z. And again, 


if you want to find something on GSI -- I'll 


keep picking on it -- it should be on there, 


and that will get you back to the GSI page. 


TBD-6000 and 6001, I clicked on U for uranium, 


'cause that's what those documents talk about, 


and here is the link again to those documents. 


So -- also the help A to Z page will get you I 


think to where you want. But again, I would 


highly recommend those individual site pages. 


Any questions on any of that real quick before 


I --


 DR. MELIUS: I'd like to --


 MS. ELLISON: -- trudge along? 

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 DR. MELIUS: I would just point out that the 


individual site pages are not complete and -- 


good example is Blockson, which we've been 


talking about in the last few days. The SC&A 


report is not available. It's only available 


on the Advisory Board page. 


 MS. ELLISON: And which document would that be? 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, if you go to the Advisory 


Board page, you'll find a document which is the 


SC&A review of the Blockson. 


 MS. ELLISON: Right there it is, the top one, 


possibly, comments from Sanford Cohen & 


Associates? 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, I stand corrected then. 


 MS. ELLISON: I'm sorry. I'm telling you, 


things are in so many different places, it -- 


it's hard to keep track, even for me, but I do 


try to remember where I place everything. And 


I do know -- and most of them are under 


comments on the -- the documents. There is one 


page -- let me go to the Dow page real quick. 


 Dow Chemical Company -- most of these sites 


have comments on -- Dow Chemical Company, 


you'll see -- here we have documents related to 


Dow Chemical. One of the issues when these 

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reports are done by SC&A, there was one that 


was a focused review of operations and thorium 


exposures at Dow Chemical Company, Madison 


plant, was the title. It's not really a 


comment on a specific document. It's not a -- 


it's a comment on a site profile, TBD, a TIB. 


It was something else -- something related, so 


it got put in a little bit different category 


on that page, but it is also there. 


 Yes, ma'am? 


DR. ROESSLER: The list of work sites is really 


helpful, but what I've been doing is I ignore 


the claimant corner list. 


 MS. ELLISON: Uh-huh. 


DR. ROESSLER: I go down to the OCAS directory 


and it's not there, so I've been going to help 


A to Z. I think it would -- I know you want to 


keep that short, but I think it would be good 


to have it down under OCAS directory -- 


 MS. ELLISON: And that's easy enough to do. We 


can do that. 


Let's see, what else would I -- all right, 


we've kind of talked about -- in the packet 


that I've given you, kind of talked about the 


technical documents used in dose reconstruction 

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and how you can find those. Again, I strongly 


urge that you use the site pages. 


Advisory Board page is another thing I mention 


in your little packet of information there. 


Here Advisory Board page contains a lot of 


information, and what I've done -- what we've 


done recently is, with the transcripts and 


minutes, the -- on your page are only things 


currently from this year. If you scr-- if you 


look down through that director, or the 


navigation of "on this page," you're going to 


find -- the charter is out there, and a list of 


your members and how to contact the Board, 


subcommittee and workgroup information, all of 


your subcommittees and workgroup members and 


things are listed there. 


But then you come to the meetings, and that 


takes up a large portion of the -- of this 


page. And what we've done is only the -- the 


meetings from the current year are posted 


there. You have to go to some supplementary 


pages to get to the other previous years. But 


I've done that so that page is not humongous 


'cause it's fairly large as it is. 


On this page also you'll find the technical 

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support for the Board's review. That's the 


contract information for SC&A. And then there 


is also the section on the recommendations from 


the technical support contractor is where I put 


all of the SC&A reports, and I clicked on that 


to get you down there. 


One of the things I've done -- a while back, 


and I'm sorry, I don't recall when I changed 


the format for this -- they were listed by the 


date that they were submitted or received, and 


now I've kind of broken it down into categories 


to hopefully make -- make it a little bit 


easier. So it's a live and learn situation; as 


things grow, things change. I'm just going to 


scroll down through these, sorry, rather than 


popping back up. 


The next section on that page are the -- your 


recommendations on SEC petitions. Again, these 


are posted on your Advisory Board page and 


again on the individual S-- work site pages, so 


they're in both locations, wherever you're 


trying to find them. And that's pretty much it 


on that page. 


 The last thing in the handout I gave you is a 


big table at the very, very end. And what --

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what I have done is taken the navigation bar 


and I've told you what section of the 


navigation bar this item deals with. And then 


I told you the page. I've given you the link 


to that page, and then a little description of 


the information on that page. In that 


description, it's all those items that are on 


the navigation bar on -- under this pa-- on 


this page. So this kind of gives you a summary 


of what's on all the main pages on our web 


site. 


Before I go on and discuss transcripts and 


minutes, any issues about what's on there and 


where and how to find it? Jim? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think -- I would also 


suggest that if we're going to have a 


comprehensive page for each site, that it 


really be comprehensive, that it include the 


workgroup meetings for that site. It should 


include, if there's a workgroup, the listing 


for that workgroup. And then also the 


transcripts from those workgroup meetings where 


they -- they have been transcribed. Again 


using Blockson as an example, the workgroup 


meeting that we had today is not mentioned at 

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all. I mean --


 MS. ELLISON: No. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- and now maybe that's a question 


of -- because of scheduling and so forth, 


though it was transcribed and so forth, we have 


no -- no record of that. 


 I'd also suggest that we, you know, put all 


things relevant to the SEC evaluation together, 


things relevant to the site profile review 


together so that people can go and -- do that. 


I think the -- the other issue -- and I'm not 


sure there's anything you can do about this -- 


is that if you try to use the search function, 


you end up with a lo-- just -- (unintelligible) 


information and it's -- the labeling is -- 


sometimes it's labeled by its web site, you 


know, address. Sometimes it's a document -- 


you know, a long title that -- then cut off so 


you have no idea of what's there and -- 


 MS. ELLISON: And part of the reason for that ­

- let me scroll back up here so people 


understand what I'm referring to. If you look 


at the very, very top of the web page, all the 


area in the blue -- the CDC logo and -- and 


items -- are -- are you referring to the search 

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that's up in that --


 DR. MELIUS: Yes, says search NIOSH, and -- 


 MS. ELLISON: And it tur-- it searches the 


whole entire NIOSH site is the issue. I -- I 


tested it and did a couple of searches -- and 


I'm sorry, I'm not on line here -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MS. ELLISON: -- to do it, but I know I typed 


in like Hanford, and I think I typed in Y-12 


and a couple of the other sites, and the first 


thing for me that popped up was the individual 


site page. 


 DR. MELIUS: Ye-- no, it -- it gets -- but then 


it gets other stuff, too -- 


 MS. ELLISON: Yes, it does. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- that actually may be helpful to 


people. 


 MS. ELLISON: Right, right. 


 DR. MELIUS: You know, I mean -- and again, I 


don't think you can put the section of each -- 


 MS. ELLISON: No. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- Board meeting that reference, 


you know, say Blockson or something -- 


 MS. ELLISON: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- in the site page, but -- but 

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it's -- it's a hard one. And again, I don't 


know if there's something -- you know, if you 


had a separate OCAS search, maybe it's better, 


but it's also the -- I think -- I think the 


nature of the technology that -- that you're 


using, but I -- I think it's very important 


that there be -- and I -- I think if there can 


be some instructions on there, maybe there are, 


just for the users that they -- again, this is 


for people that are, you know, interested in 


what's happening with a site are able to come 


back, can't find it on one page, but let's make 


it really -- really comprehensive and we'll 


talk a little bit about the Privacy Act stuff 


next 'cause I think that's another part of 


that. 


 MS. ELLISON: Yes, it is, and -- and thank you 


for that. There's one other thing you had 


mentioned about the meetings and things and 


that I didn't quite point out. The -- the 


meeting-- the Advisory Board meetings are 


listed on your Advisory Board page. Down under 


the -- the OCAS directory section of the 


navigation bar there's also a link to public 


meetings. And again -- just to point out the 

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differences to you all on these two si-- two 


pages and two sections, the Advisory -- the -- 


the meetings listed on the Advisory Board page 


are obviously just those of the Advisory Board. 


NIOSH does -- we -- we do conduct some public 


meetings with workers and things, so that other 


page does have a mix-- mixture of both Advisory 


Board meetings and other meetings that might be 


occurring. So just in -- in case you're 


wondering about that. 


 Any other issues with navigation and where you 


find things? 


 DR. WADE: Chris, in terms of --


 MS. ELLISON: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: -- Dr. Melius's desire to see that 


on the site page you would find the workgroup 


identified and workgroup meetings, that's very 


doable. 


 MS. ELLISON: That-- that's pretty easy to do. 


We can -- we can work on that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Just a cross-link. 


 MS. ELLISON: Yeah, yeah, that-- that should be 


no problem and I wrote it down. 


Okay, I'm going to move on then to the other 


issue at hand. I know it's a burning desire 

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for some of you there, the transcripts issue. 


And -- and just to give you a little bit of 


background on this, and I think -- did Zaida 


provide you all with a -- 


 DR. WADE: Yes, everybody should have the 


matrix of transcripts. 


 MS. ELLISON: -- should be a spreadsheet on 


this. To give you a little background of where 


this started and what's currently occurring 


with the transcripts and minutes, I believe it 


was towards the end of May the NIOSH Privacy 


Act office determined and decided that the 


minutes and transcripts needed to be reviewed 


and redacted for Privacy Act concerns. And 


part of that stems from -- if you think about 


it, we -- we try, and we're bound by Privacy 


Act, to protect the privacy of our claimants 


and also those SEC petitioners. During the 


Board meetings you -- you address the 


petitioners by name and call them up. They 


speak, so their names are in the transcripts. 


And even during some of the public comment 


sessions individuals obviously give their name, 


they talk about their health conditions, but 


it's not only just that. They also talk about 

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other people's health conditions and things, 


and those were in the transcripts so that is 


stemming part of the concern by the Privacy Act 


office and why they have now asked that these 


things be redacted before we post them. 


And one thing that does occur, when Ray 


completes a transcript he does send an 


electronic copy to me, but he does also send it 


at the same time to the NIOSH Privacy Act 


office, so they do get them at the same time. 


It helps me keep track of what I'm waiting on 


and that's sort of how this -- this spreadsheet 


that you have in front of you was put together. 


I do have some changes and updates for you, if 


you don't mind -- yes, sir. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'd like to get a few comments on 


the Privacy Act issue. I for one don't 


understand the ruling -- it seems to me it's a 


defensive reflex on the part of the agency, but 


the -- the open meeting is a public meeting, 


and once something is public, I don't see why 


it isn't public. People have revealed 


themselves. If -- and -- and I know probably 


it takes a full legal reading but this is not 


unlike patent issues. If somebody in a public 

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meeting tells about their idea, they've lost 


patent rights. It's public. 


 MS. ELLISON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's too late. And why is this 


any different from any public meeting. Our 


transcripts would be in the public domain much 


faster if the redaction wasn't done and, you 


know, the Village Observer can sit here and 


videotape --


 MS. ELLISON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- legally, and I think it was the 


name of the group that was taping our 


procedures (unintelligible) and put them on the 


air. Or any news media person could do the 


same. 


 MS. ELLISON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So I -- I would hope that that -- 


that decision at some point could be revisited. 


I don't see how it serves us very well at all. 


 DR. WADE: I mean that's noted. What I can do 


is I could have someone from the Privacy Act 


office here -- not here, but at our December 


call and have that issue explained and debated. 


 MS. ELLISON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I -- I'm -- I think if you 

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act a Privacy Act person about that, I know 


what the answer will be. I'm wondering from a 


legal point of view if that were -- see, to me, 


if I'm a Privacy Act person, their starting 


position is that almost everything is private 


and then we'll go from there. But this is a 


public meeting, and the -- the information is 


already in the public domain. A reporter could 


be here and report it and so on. 


(Unintelligible) it's just -- I'm sort of 


asking about the logic of it and it concerns me 


because now it seems to be a major bottleneck 


in getting our transcripts available to people. 


I don't know how the other Board members feel 


about this, but I am certainly concerned. 


 Wanda, Jim. 


 MS. MUNN: I can see attributes on both sides 


of the issue. The fact that this is a public 


meeting means that anything that's said or done 


in what we do is available to the public. 


Whether or not it's actually placed in front of 


the public eye is a different thing. And when 


we have people talking, especially about case 


reviews and case reports, and they frequently 


do refer to their colleagues, other people that 

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they've worked with, I can see that we would 


have no way of knowing whether those other 


individuals have given their permission to have 


their names and information put on the -- on 


the record or not. Even though they're on the 


public record, unless someone goes to our site 


to look at the printed information afterwards, 


they have to be actually present at the time in 


order to see that data. Anyone who is not 


present at the time has to go look it up. And 


if -- if we become the channel through which 


that information which was not agreed to is 


made public on a much broader scale, then it 


does rather put us in a questionable light. 


Right? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think what we need to seek 


out 'cause I have some -- share some of the 


concerns that -- that Wanda has, particularly 


about the public comment period of the -- of 


the meetings, and people -- or people not 


understanding what -- what it means when they 


get up at the microphone and speak, that -- 


that that's then going to be available very 


widely and someone can look up their name on 


the internet and, you know, find that -- 

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whatever Joe Smith said, this or that, and has 


cancer and, you know, insurance salesman comes 


to their door the next day or something, which 


isn't that far-fetched and I -- and so maybe 


what could be worked out is I -- I think most 


of the business parts of our meetings are -- 


this is not an issue and I think usually in the 


Board -- in the way things are presented to us, 


we're very careful about what we -- we -- we 


say that -- and -- and we have lawyers in the 


audience that -- that -- for our government 


that -- who can, you know, maybe red flag if 


there -- there is something that is 


questionable. But maybe if the process was 


split up so that the Board business meetings 


could get onto the -- the web sooner and maybe 


without review or with less review, and then 


put the public parts of the meeting on later 


with -- with appropriate review. Now this all 


-- I mean I agree also with Paul, there's a 


question of how much you take out and -- and -- 


and so forth and then, you know, do we want to 


-- we're trying to follow up sometimes on -- on 


some of these situations and making sure we 


have some way of -- of continuing to do that 

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about a particular -- particular site or 


something. But to me, some of -- approach like 


that. I mean we've got situation -- we have 


meetings from February of this year that the 


minutes are still not available, and -- and 


it's not a -- I think that's -- 


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: -- very bad precedent for an open 


meetings. I think in some cases the 


transcripts are but the minutes aren't, but in 


terms of public information that -- you know, 


that -- read through the transcript, which 


is... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Can you -- Lew, can you tell us, 


or someone else, is it the public comment 


period that's the main issue? Is there much 


redaction done from the main Board meeting? 


 DR. WADE: From my perspective, no. And I 


think -- to the issue of relative amounts of 


work, it goes to the relative amounts of pages 


of the -- the Board meeting and the public 


comment. I think Dr. Melius's suggestion is a 


wise one. 


What I would like to possibly -- how I'd like 


to approach that is possibly for the Board to 

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give a sense of what it thinks is a reasonable 


time lag between the occurrence of a meeting 


and the posting of the transcript or minutes. 


If we could set a mark for that, then we could 


work processes to try and reach that. And if 


bifurcating the work is necessary to do that, 


then that might be a tack that we'd take. But 


I would like to leave here with some sense of 


is one month, two months, three months -- 


what's reasonable from the end of a meeting to 


the appearance of the transcript. 


I need to make one point for the record, I 


think, Paul. And this goes to Privacy Act, but 


I'll make the point in terms of security 


issues. We've had public comments made that 


have raised security concerns. The fact that 


those issues have been raised in a public forum 


doesn't mean that we can publish transcripts 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Particularly if there's classified 


issues that arise. 


 DR. WADE: Privacy stuff is as important, 


really, as (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me ask this question. 


Is it possible for the Board to enact some 

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rules of engagement where -- whereby we specify 


that individuals participating in the public 


comment period may not discuss other people's 


cases, or name them? Is that possible to do? 


 DR. WADE: It's possible to do; it's impossible 


to --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think --


 DR. WADE: -- enforce. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- we'll have a hard time doing 


that and -- and -- from the Privacy Act 


perspective, I mean -- then you -- trying to 


figure out what's the relationship 'cause you ­

- remember, it's not just -- it's not just 


family members. You know, it's -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I understand, I'm --

 DR. MELIUS: -- people speaking for -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- I'm asking whether -- 

 DR. MELIUS: -- other people and there's the 

permission issues and so forth and -- I mean 


I've done a lot of public meetings and -- and 


telling people not to reveal their -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: And it still happens. 


 DR. MELIUS: It still happens. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: I mean they can't help them-- you 

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know, selves. 


BOARD WORKING TIME: TRACKING OF STATUS OF 


TRANSCRIPTS AND MINUTES


 DR. WADE: But to set the stage -- excuse me -- 


for this discussion that we're going to have -- 


I mean I have to give kudos to Ray. We -- we 


put the work of the workgroups and the Board 


first, and the rule we followed is that if a 


workgroup chair wants a transcript, they get it 


almost immediately. Now it's not been 


redacted, but they can work with it. Now that 


sometimes upsets the queue in terms of other 


things, and that's my responsibility to manage 


and, you know, I take that responsibility 


gladly. 


If I could get a sense from the Board of how 


soon it wanted to see redacted transcripts 


posted, then that would be a starting point. 


can't guarantee that we could meet that. I'd 


like to get a sense of the Board, you know -- 


the numbers that jump to my mind are one month 


or three months. You know, what's the sense of 


the Board? One month is -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn. 


 DR. WADE: -- tough; three months is doable. 


I 
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 MS. MUNN: I think there is something in 


between that we might consider. One of the -- 


 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) One and three, 


(unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: -- one of the -- yeah, one plus 


three, let's see, in between there there might 


be. 


The -- the problem with minutes being too late 


or not appearing at all seems to be that we 


can't refresh our memories with respect to 


exactly what was said, exactly what the action 


items were, exactly who is charged with doing 


what. In light of the current schedules that 


we have with respect to face-to-face public 


meetings, for a full-scale meeting of this kind 


it would appear that a time period like in the 


six-week time frame would be a reasonable 


expectation that would appear to give a Privacy 


Act office an adequate amount of time since the 


turnaround time on their draft review for -- of 


the minutes is relatively short -- what Ray, 


normally two weeks or so they have the 


information back? Is that about right? No, 


you don't normally get -- you don't normally 


get that --

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THE COURT REPORTER: I can speak? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, you can speak. 


THE COURT REPORTER: You're asking two weeks 


from the --


 MS. MUNN: No. 


 DR. WADE: No, from the time the meeting is 


over to the time we receive -- 


 MS. MUNN: I'm -- I'm talking about the time 


the meeting is over to the time you send the 


draft in to the Privacy Act is usually -- 


THE COURT REPORTER: Right, I'm glad to speak 


to this because like just in Naperville I've 


been hit by four different people saying Ray, I 


need those immediately, and I usually take that 


to heart and do it, which means other stuff 


that's still pending gets waylaid. I think 


what would help the process is more interaction 


with directive to me. You know, like if all 


the requests would go to Dr. Wade or Dr. 


Branche, and then they tell me this goes in 


order. So you know, it's hard to just 


generally state how fast something gets 


somewhere. 


One thing that I'm thinking is, given the huge 


amount of meetings we're having, it's just 

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about impossible for me to get everything 


turned around in a month. And if you say let's 


turn it around in a month, are you talking 


about all the workgroups also, because that 


would be impossible. 


I've had one idea, because I'm real backlogged 


on minutes right now because there's been so 


many transcripts to get out, is that if I could 


bring one of my reporters with me, I could be 


working on minutes at the meeting and have 


those out almost immediately and -- while the 


court reporter's taking down the verbatim. 


That's just a -- just a thought, just an option 


that I have that could help expedite me getting 


stuff to the redaction department. So you 


know, if we're going to talk about just the big 


Board meetings and I can get to work on them 


immediately, I can turn those around in a month 


and then how long it takes the Privacy Act 


people, I don't know. 


 DR. WADE: If you would -- in my opinion, if 


you were to say two months for Board meetings, 


the last date of posting, I think that's -- 


that's achievable. 


 MS. MUNN: That's achievable, then -- then that 

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seems to be a reasonable starting point. With 


respect to working groups, now this creates an 


entirely different issue for many of the 


working groups have a working phone call and a 


working face-to-face in between our full Board 


meetings. I know it's certainly the case with 


the procedures workgroup. We feel like that's 


necessary for us to keep track of -- of the new 


findings that are coming in on a routine basis. 


So in the case of some of the workgroups that 


are most active, a turnaround time for them, 


especially of a rough draft, not necessarily 


redacted or -- or posted yet, but that's 


crucial for the smooth operation of the -- the 


working group. So if Ray's suggestion that we 


bring our specific requests to our Designated 


Federal Official and have them make some 


prioritization, if that falls on welcome ears ­

-


 DR. WADE: Oh, sure. 


 MS. MUNN: -- then I can see no reason why that 


wouldn't be --


 DR. WADE: Right, and --

 MS. MUNN: -- (unintelligible). 

 DR. WADE: -- I would also add, if you want any 
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part of a Board meeting immediately -- I know 


Mark wanted a section on a Rocky Flats 


discussion immediately after a Board meeting -- 


we would get it to him that next day or within 


two days. Again, it's not redacted. It's for 


his use. That I think we've been pretty good 


at being able to do. But getting it redacted 


and posted then takes time and things slip in 


the queue. 


 DR. ZIEMER: As the -- maybe a reference point, 


Ray, can -- can you tell us in -- you do a lot 


of legal -- court cases and so on and -- is 


there some kind of standard that's used in the 


legal profession as to what would be -- what 


would constitute sort of the timely appearance 


of -- of transcripts from court proceedings, 


for example? It -- this might -- perhaps could 


serve us as at least a reference point. Not 


that we would use that, but -- you know, is the 


turnaround time two weeks, two months, a year, 


what --


THE COURT REPORTER: Well, actually in Georgia, 


and this varies from state to state, but in 


Georgia it's 120 days from the time a trial is 


finished before that court reporter has to have 

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it filed in that courthouse. Now of course all 


the court reporters could turn that around in 


two weeks, but they're usually not set aside 


and said you now have two weeks to go work on 


that trial. They're immediately back in more 


court cases, taking down. And that's the 


problem. It's like if I was to go home right 


now and have nothing to do but Naperville, you 


would have it at the end of next week. But of 


course I've still got -- I currently have 18 


transcripts pending just for this group, and I 


think most of you know this isn't the only 


project I work on, although it's the main one. 


And what I'm suggesting is that the workload 


for this group alone is more than one person 


can handle. I mean I love this work and I'm 


honored to do it, but it's just obviously more 


than one person can handle and get your 


transcripts and minutes out timely enough. And 


I am saying that I can bring aboard another 


person, which would help immensely. 


And one other thing about the turnaround, I 


think whatever y'all determine is doable. It's 


just my -- but then we have to determine what 


kind of manpower I bring aboard. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Say -- actual -- the common 


practice in court in depositions now is 


instantaneous transcripts, at least in 


depositions. You see people hooked up to 


computers and networked and doing that. In 


court it's usually overnight turnarounds are 


requested, and some of that's the technology 


and do use a little different approach than 


what Ray does. 


I was going to suggest that we -- we check 


about the availability of that Italian gold 


medal winner from a few years ago who I think 


is -- heard is so much quicker and might 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) all the 


transcripts (Unintelligible). 


 DR. MELIUS: But seriously, I -- I think that 


two months is too long, and I -- I think try-- 


you know, 30 days is what we should be -- aim 


for. Now that's with the proviso that one is 


that we -- we may want to, you know, bifurcate 


or -- or try to eliminate some of the -- the 


roadblocks when we know there's going to be 


problems, like the public meeting aspects of 

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some of these meetings that they could take a 


little bit longer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, are you talking 30 days for 


the total process --


 DR. MELIUS: Total --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- Ray plus the redaction? 

 DR. MELIUS: Total process. 'Cause I don't 

think it's just a question of us 'cause we 


actually do have quicker access to some of this 


information because of -- we can see it before 


it's redacted if -- if necessary. But for, you 


know, the public out there that -- that I -- I 


think -- it's transparency and certainly the -- 


the current situation, the backlog is -- I -- I 


don't think it's acceptable and I think it's 


become problematic in some of the deliberations 


of the Bo-- of the -- of the Board, so I would 


like to see -- see something sooner, and I 


think if that requires additional resources -- 


not the Italian, then maybe an extra person 


with Ray, that --


 DR. WADE: And extra --


 DR. MELIUS: -- that's fine. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, just -- just to reflect on 

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the Rocky Flats experience, I mean I think as 


we went along with workgroups, I also tried to, 


as workgroup chair, start to pay closer 


attention to keeping a detailed list of actions 


that were due by NIOSH, by SC&A and making sure 


that those went to the petitioners, too, al-- 


although that was, you know, difficult to 


manage in and of itself. We had a matrix that 


was growing out of hand. I -- I -- I do know 


that we -- we did run across in that process a 


situation at the end of -- of the -- the crunch 


to get to a decision for Rocky Flats, we had 


very frequent workgroup meetings and, you know, 


we were running across situation where the 


petitioners were getting on the phone saying I 


haven't even seen the transcript from the last 


meeting yet and -- but it was -- they were very 


close together so we do -- you know, I think it 


does become sort of this manpower question for 


Ray's side. But I guess, you know, one thing 


we as workgroup chairs could do maybe is sort 


of standardize our, you know, what -- what are 


we responsible for delivering and keeping, as 


opposed to just relying on the transcripts. 


think it started -- it started helping the 


I 
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92 

process in Rocky Flats where I would -- would 


update the action listing in our matrix, and I 


even got to the point where I was, you know, 


highlighting in different colors 'cause we went 


through so many evolutions. But I'd circulate 


that to NIOSH and SC&A before we got to the 


workgroup meeting and make sure yes, these are 


the agreed-upon -- and then those rare 


instances -- there was a couple of, as Lew 


mentioned, there was an instance where we had 


some disagreement, then we wanted the 


transcript to kind of reflect back -- what did 


people say, what did people commit to. But I 


think that -- that does help and maybe lessens 


the need for an immediate transcript from some 


of those workgroup things if we have a good 


list of actions that your -- your -- you know, 


your priority action list, then I think that is 


mainly what people want to know going into the 


next step. But that's not always the case, 


so... 


 DR. WADE: Ray, do you want to say something? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Well, let me kind of 


clarify that thing about the 120-day turnaround 


in Georgia. That's rarely needed. It's set in 

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93 

statute just so in case some court reporter's 


stuck in a 3-month murder trial or something. 


Obviously that's going to take forever to 


produce. We, too, can do real time reporting 


on simple Workers Comp depositions where it's 


one person asking one person questions and it's 


yes and no. We -- we have the capacity to do 


that. Obviously these meetings aren't of that 


nature and so that's why we're not set up for 


real time. Now we could get to that if the 


request was made, but that again would require 


a reporter and a scopist. That might be 


something y'all want to look into. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thanks. 


 DR. WADE: A couple of points if I could make ­

- oh, I'm sorry. 


 MS. MUNN: I'd like to request that my fellow 


colleagues on the Board to join me in a 


recommendation -- a formal recommendation that 


our court reporter be given the opportunity to 


bring additional resources to bear on what we 


are doing here, certainly at least on a 


temporary basis until we feel we're level with 


where we need to be, and perhaps on a permanent 


basis if it appears that that's going to be 

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94 

necessary in the long term. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This sounds like a motion. Is 


that needed for this to occur, Lew, or -- 


 DR. WADE: I mean I understand the sense of the 


Board, certainly, and will carry it back. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is there any objection to -- do 


the rest of the Board members feel that it 


would be of value to increase the manpower here 


and try to get this backlog taken care of and 


then -- appears to be a consensus on that. We 


-- we still need a little more clarification on 


the turnaround time. Thirty days has been 


suggested. 


 DR. WADE: Right, I'd like to react to that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 DR. WADE: But first I want to react to several 


things in general, just to put them on the 


record. The first is that under FACA, 


workgroups really are intended not to be formal 


meetings with transcripts taken. And this 


Board I think has made the completely 


appropriate decision to do that and I applaud 


that. We've created an expectation in 


everyone's mind that -- that they will have 


quick access to transcripts of all workgroups, 

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95 

and I think we need to live consistent with 


that. It's created a dynamic that we're 


talking about now, but I think it's worth 


noting and applauding. 


What I'll do is I will attempt to put in place 


a process that meets the 30-day requirement for 


Board meetings, and I'll report to you in 


December on the status of this matrix and where 


we are. And I -- and I can't imagine I won't 


have a positive report to make about previous 


Board meetings, and I will then either commit 


to you to try and live to the 30 days or I'll 


come to you with a -- an honest statement that 


that's not doable within the resource structure 


we have, and we can talk further. But I think 


it is doable, but I -- I can't commit to it 


today, but I'll try and come to you in December 


and tell you it is doable and we commit to it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Further comments? Jim, 


another comment there? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- yeah, I agree that I 


think having Lew report back to us -- the 


December meeting I think is sort of -- way to 


move forward. I would ask -- actually I would 


extend -- I'm willing to extend the 30 days to 

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96 

all workgroup meetings and so forth, but if 


maybe Lew could come back to us at the same 


time with a -- sort of what would be an 


expected schedule of that, 'cause I think that 


would be -- be more variable. There's a wor-- 


workgroup that's meeting -- you know, doing a 


site profile review, it's not going to meet 


again for six months or four months or 


whatever, I -- I'd -- I think then that the, 


you know, 30 days or 60 days may not be 


necessary. When we're having a workgroup 


that's dealing with an SEC issue that we're 


trying to move along to closure, then -- then I 


think a more timely transcript and -- and so 


forth is -- is helpful. 


Now I -- the other alternative -- it may end up 


being more work, I don't know, but is there 


something like minutes from a workgroup meeting 


that would help to summarize what went on would 


be a -- rather than a transcript, but I suspect 


that that's more work and probably wouldn't be 


any quicker, may even take longer to do. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sometimes summarizing is as 


lengthy as --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah -- no, I --

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97

 DR. ZIEMER: -- simply transcribing. 


 DR. WADE: And that would normally fall to the 


workgroup chair, as well, as we've been doing 


business. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And if the workgroup chairs all 


pass their requests through Lew so that he can 


control the priority demands on -- on the 


reporter, then that will help, I think. 


 DR. WADE: We'll commit to getting a workgroup 


chair whatever they need as quickly as 


possible, and I think we've lived good to that. 


But that doesn't solve the public burden we've 


taken on. 


 DR. MELIUS: And -- and -- and I realized that 


as I was suggesting that that Wanda was smiling 


'cause I don't think it would fall upon the 


workgroup chair. I think certain workgroup 


chairs would readily assign that to another 


workgroup member. 


 MS. MUNN: Quickly. 


 DR. MELIUS: So I withdraw that. 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you, sir. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Phil, did you have a comment? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yeah, just one. In order for 

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98 

Ray to do this kind of information, are we 


going to have to go to legal to see about the 


procurement of an increase in the contract? 


 DR. WADE: Ray, I was going to --


 MR. SCHOFIELD: And how long will that take? 


 DR. WADE: I was going to mention that. Well, 


it's more dicey than that. I mean, you know, 


we in government are constantly looking at 


competing and recompeting, and -- and the 


services that we secure here are under some 


scrutiny in terms of an open competition. So I 


don't want to prejudge that, but -- but these 


are issues that we'll have to deal with. We 


certainly want to see the Board have the 


highest quality service and we're aiming to 


provide that. We have procurement issues that 


we're dealing with now and I'll keep the Board 


apprised of them. I don't know that your 


request here will adversely affect our ability 


to succeed in what we're trying to do, but one 


never knows. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Michael? 


 MR. GIBSON: Just for the procurement issues, 


there are certain specialties that the 


contracting agent can sole source, and I 

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99 

believe that it would be -- it'd be a great 


step backwards to try to bring someone in on 


certain issues and -- for instance, you know, 


Ray's job -- that has no idea of what we're 


talking about and I think it would further 


delay. 


 DR. WADE: Noted and understood -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: -- completely. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda, you have additional 


comment? 


 MS. MUNN: As I was -- I was just going to 


comment that although the Chair mentioned that 


only 30 days had been suggested, I 


(unintelligible)--


 DR. ZIEMER: It was somewhere between 30 and 90 


with what -- what was that -- 


 MS. MUNN: I -- I had specifically suggested 


that six weeks might be a reasonable time. I 


understand that Dr. Melius is a powerful 


argumenter, but nevertheless -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: So noted, we have a four weeks and 


we have a six weeks, and I -- I suspect maybe 


before we -- I think I heard Lew commit to 


something that -- that would meet a six weeks 

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100 

requirement, something like 30 days. 


 MS. MUNN: That's right. 


 DR. WADE: Which would --


 DR. ZIEMER: But we may want not to freeze that 


at the moment till we hear your report and -- 


and get a better feel for how that is going, as 


opposing -- as opposed to making a firm time 


commitment at this point. But I -- I think I 


heard you say that perhaps 30 days is doable, 


at least --


 DR. WADE: We -- we want to do this as quickly 


as we can. Obviously I have the sense of the 


Board that there's a sentiment for 30 days. 


Maybe there's a sentiment for a bit longer. 


Let us go and sharpen our pencils and see -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: But not three months or -- 


 DR. WADE: We don't -- I mean I'll commit to 


two months now, but we'll do better than that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Another comment. 


 DR. MELIUS: And just in deference to my wise 


colleague, I was not trying to impose my 30-day 


deadline. It was -- which is why I was 


suggesting that Lew report back to us on what 


was reasonable 'cause -- giving him 


flexibility. 

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101

 DR. WADE: I would like to choose between Ms. 


Munn and Dr. Melius, so I will decide which we 


like better and we'll go with that number. 


 DR. MELIUS: Five (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: The standard deviation on both 


(unintelligible) is pretty large actually. 


 DR. WADE: But now to this little matrix, I 


mean we will -- the -- the last thing I'll say 


to you, there's evidence of this matrix of the 


pushing we're trying to do. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. WADE: Oh, you want to do it? Okay. 


 MS. ELLISON: I have updates for it. 


 DR. WADE: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: (Unintelligible) going to say the 


99 percent confidence interval's 


(unintelligible) we made (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, back to Chris. 


 DR. WADE: I'm sorry, yes. Chris got -- good 


news. 


 MS. ELLISON: I have some more news on -- on 


the matrix for you. The -- and I don't know if 


you've received the e-mail on the web updates 


or not, but the minutes from the February 7th 

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through 9th meeting were posted yesterday on 


the web site, so that redaction is completed on 


the February 7th through 9th. 


There's a -- the March 27th workgroup 


teleconference for NTS that's listed on there, 


those should go up this afternoon. 


 DR. MELIUS: Aah. 


 MS. ELLISON: Ah, we're making headway. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What date was that last one? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) March 27th. 


 MS. ELLISON: March 27th. Those -- you should 


receive an e-mail later today with that update. 


Okay, on to the next page, the May 2nd through 


4th meeting, all of those items we have 


received back from the Privacy Act office with 


the markups for the -- the redactions. So all 


of those are back, ready to be redacted. And 


then --


 DR. WADE: And then posted. 


 MS. ELLISON: And then posted. And then the 


last item I have is under the June 11th and 


12th meeting. The transcript for June 11th, 


we received that also back from the Privacy Act 


office with all the markups. 


And just to let you all know, I have received 

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103 

word that our plans in posting these and 


completing the redaction removing all the 


information, the current plan is to start from 


the oldest and work our way forward, so if 


there are any priorities, I need to know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Again, I think, Lew, you're going 


to need to coordinate those priorities with 


respect to the workgroups and -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 MS. ELLISON: But currently the plan is to work 


oldest from -- to most recent, just so you 


know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, thank you. 


 MS. ELLISON: Okay? That's the latest that I 


have right now. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other questions or comments 

for Chris? 

 (No responses) 

Chris, we do thank you for all your work on the 


web site. We know that we always have issues 


that we would like to improve and -- and 


change, but it's -- it's been a very helpful 


and useful instrument for us and we do thank 


you for the work that you do on it. 


 MS. ELLISON: (Unintelligible) --

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 DR. WADE: I would like to make mention of 


Zaida, who's in the audience, and she's taken 


on the task of developing these matrices and -- 


with much help from others -- and updating 


them. So a week before the December 6th call 


you will get an updated matrix of this type and 


we'll use that as -- as the basis of my report, 


so thank you, Zaida, very much for your 


efforts. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Some of the Board members have 


requested that we skip breaks and just let 


people take breaks individually. I -- I don't 


know if that's -- is this the sense of the 


whole Board or just the people who have planes 


to catch, but --


 (Whereupon, multiple Board members spoke 


simultaneously.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: A brief comfort break, okay -- 


five minutes. Okay, comfort break. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:25 a.m. 


to 10:40 a.m.) 


ROCKY FLATS FOLLOW-UP ACTIONS STATUS


 DR. ZIEMER: Our next item on the agenda is the 


follow-up on -- or status of Rocky Flats 


follow-up actions, and Jim Neton's going to 

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give us that presentation. Jim? 


 DR. MELIUS: Before Jim starts, I have a 


question about the agenda, in my -- this is for 


Lew. Are we going to talk about the Privacy 


Act review and schedule on some of the 


documents also? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Is that later in the agenda 


to... 


 DR. WADE: Well, when we come to these 


matrices, it's where those documents would be 


in play. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, fine. Okay, I just wanted 


to make sure that -- I have some questions 


there, that's all. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Jim. 


DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I don't 


have any slides or anything for the 


presentation, it should be brief. I'm just 


going to update the Advisory Board on our 


efforts to move through the Rocky Flats cases 


that were not part of the SEC, as we committed 


to when the Board voted to add Rocky Flats at 


the Colorado meeting in June. 


I presented a -- an update on September 4th 

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during the Board's conference call, and this 


represents main progress that we've made since 


then. 


If you recall, the issues -- there were three 


issues at Rocky Flats -- four, but really three 


issues that -- that arose as a result of the 


deliberations of the working group that we 


needed to modify the site profile. Those 


included the super S dose reconstructions, use 


of the 95th percentile for unmonitored workers, 


and the neutron dose model from 1967-'70. 


We have -- we have revised both the 


internal/external dosimetry site profiles for 


Rocky Flats to include those new models, and we 


are up on the web site. They were revised in 


August -- early -- mid-- mid-- mid-August time 


frame, and so we are ready to do dose 


reconstructions based on -- on the new models 


that were developed during the working group 


deliberations. 


We took a look at the cases that we had -- had 


been denied at Rocky Flats. There were, by 


our count, 590 cases out of the 947 that were ­

- were processed that needed to be reevaluated 


in light of the new -- new approaches. One 

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thing that was not realized at the time we made 


this discussion, though -- when I -- when we 


discussed how we were going to proceed was that 


we are now in the process of working -- when we 


rework a case we not only look at the -- at the 


isolated changes that were made to the Rocky 


Flats site profile, but also we will examine 


all other changes that have been made in the 


program at the same time. That is, if we're 


going to re-- reopen a case, we -- we're going 


to apply current technology to it across the 


board. 


In -- in light of that, it became very obvious 


to us that we could not triage these cases, in 


a sense, and say these cases are not affected; 


these cases are, send them back for a rework. 


Because of that, we've written a Program 


Evaluation Report, PER-21, that is out on our 


web site now that has requested the Department 


of Labor return to us all 590 cases that are 


less than 50 percent. They will be completely 


reworked with a brand new dose reconstruction, 


applying the -- the revisions to the Rocky 


Flats site profile as well as all the other 


changes -- any other changes that have been 

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made as part of the general program review that 


-- that we've gone through. Again, that's PER21. That's on our web site and available for 


people to look at if they choose. 


There's a slight twist to this as well, though. 


Since Rocky Flats is now part of the SEC, we're 


only asking Department of Labor to send us back 


cases that are not in the SEC. In other words, 


it would be silly for us to tell a claimant 


that their dose reconstruction's being 


reworked, go through the interview process and 


everything, only for them to be subsequently 


added to the SEC. So of the 590 cases we -- 


we've asked back -- asked for Labor to return 


to us for rework, we've only asked for them to 


send back the ones that are not part of the 


SEC. We work with Department of Labor on -- on 


determining the SEC class, or helping them to 


determine who is in the affected class. We 


have provided them a list of the workers who 


were in the Neutron Dose Reconstruction Project 


'cause certainly those people have potential 


for neutron exposure. Department of Labor has 


that list. They are also using the list that 


we -- we had available to us from the Neutron 

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Dose Reconstruction Project of the workers -- 


of the buildings that were included, and they 


are working to determine any other workers in 


those buildings that were not in the NDRP that 


need to be in the class. 


 We've also provided the Department of Labor a 


list of cases that we've reconstructed that we 


believe have employment in the relevant class 


period, as well as one SEC -- at least one SEC 


cancer, and that list has been provided to the 


Department of Labor. 


And I think that's what I have to say. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, that's the report. Thank 


you very much, Jim. Let's see if there's any 


comments or questions on your report. What --


sort of what's the timetable you think for 


getting all this done? 


DR. NETON: Well, it's difficult to say. I 


mean we've asked for them to be sent back -- 


since they're going to be complete reworks, the 


claimants will be notified that their case is 


being sent back to NIOSH and will get a brand 


new dose reconstruction, including the CATI and 


everything --


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

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DR. NETON: -- and we can't do those till we 


receive them back from Department of Labor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


 DR. MELIUS: Does Jeff have any idea? 


DR. NETON: Maybe Jeff Kotsch is here. He 


could speak to that. 


 MR. KOTSCH: It's always our intention to try 


to implement the class as soon as it's 


effective. Unfortunately on this one and -- as 


some other ones, the development of the actual 


bulletin that drives the work in our district 


offices has lagged. When I left it was in 


management review, so we're hoping that it pops 


out -- you know, this week or next week, and 


then it takes a couple of wee-- weeks to go 


through administration. But the district 


offices, once they see the bulletin in the 


semi-final form, start to at least stage the 


cases, especially the SEC cases, for -- for -- 


for a movement through the -- through the 


process. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, and -- and -- and I just -- 


 MR. KOTSCH: (Unintelligible) hopefully it 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sounds like some of them will be 

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back at NIOSH within about four weeks then 


perhaps. 


 MR. KOTSCH: At the -- yeah, you -- we -- we're 


sifting through what we -- you know, we'll make 


the cut for the SECs, do any additional 


development that we have to for those, and then 


all the rest are just going to be returned, 


basically. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Yeah, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: This might be for Jeff or Jim, 


I'm not sure -- or -- or both. Thi-- this 


question about who -- the definition of the 


class and the interpretation of that definition 


certainly was a concern of the workgroup a-- 


and the Board, and I -- I believe -- I -- I 


don't -- well, I guess I'm asking -- Jim, you 


said you sent a list of individuals you thought 


would be affected by... 


DR. NETON: We sent a list of individuals who 


were actually in the NDRP (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: NDRP only, so then the question 


that we raised in the workgroup -- 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- was we -- we felt there were 


other buildings that could have been -- 

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DR. NETON: Correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- could have involved neutron 


exposure, and I want to -- I want maybe clar-- 


clarity on how that's being interpreted, and 


maybe it's a DOL question, but... 


 MR. KOTSCH: The way the bulletin's written -- 


and again, it's -- it's draft, but I'll give 


you the essence of it -- is we work through the 


three basic pieces of information that we have, 


the NDRP list -- or the --


DR. NETON: NDRP. 


 MR. KOTSCH: -- I always get that acronym 


messed up. Anyway, work through that list. We 


-- we will look through the dose 


reconstructions to see if there is basically 


mention of plutonium or neutron exposure; 


that's another check. And the third check is ­

- what am I missing? 


 DR. WADE: Buildings. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Buildings. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Buildings. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. KOTSCH: The building numbers. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So that -- that list from NIOSH 


was just the starting point. 

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 MR. KOTSCH: That's just the starting point. 


Actually there are a number of lists. We --


Jim also mentioned the list that we always get, 


which is the SEC cancer -- non-SEC cancer list. 


We have also generated our own list of all 


cases that -- that we have in the process that 


have basically been denied for Rocky Flats, and 


so all those lists are culled through and -- of 


those three criteria are basically sifted 


through, and then anyone who's still -- or any 


claimant, I guess, who still considers that 


they may be part of the SEC goes through 


continual -- you know, continue development to 


determine whether there's any other information 


that puts them into a facility where they 


should have been monitored for neutrons. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I gu-- I guess -- let me be more 


sp-- I mean at least specific on one instance, 


the Building 881 question and the question of ­

- that we raised was not only that there was 


plutonium contamination in there, but also 


there were I believe these subcritical 


experiments, at least for a period of time, and 


we did hear some information from NIOSH that 


there was likely very few individuals involved 

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in the subcritical experiments, but we never -- 


we never really heard much more. And some of 


us sort of took issue with the fact that it 


would have only been two researchers that ever 


were near any of this subcritical -- so the 


question was, how was this going to be 


implemented. Was it going to be considered -- 


the whole building considered a -- a potential 


neutron exposure; was it going to be limited 


time periods; was it going to be limited areas, 


and we -- we don't have any more information 


and I guess I was hoping that NIOSH would 


research that more and -- and at least give DOL 


guidance on that and, you know, someone -- I 


guess I want maybe clarification 


(unintelligible) --


DR. NETON: I don't think there's much more re­

- there's not much more we can research. I 


mean we --


 MR. GRIFFON: You don't have any more. Right. 


DR. NETON: -- pulled that string as far as we 


can go. I think you -- you know, there -- 


there were certain buildings in the NDRP that 


were listed for sure (unintelligible) neutron 


workers --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- and I -- I won't list them here, 


but they're in the 700 series, 886, 991. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: When you get into buildings like 


21, 22, 23, 34, 44 and 81, those workers -- 


those buildings were included in the NDRP when 


there were workers who were monitored. For 


instance, 81 I think was the uranium building. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: But the NDRP did include workers 


who had neutron badges who worked in building 


81, and those -- those have already been 


forwarded over to Department of Labor. 


Now for workers who were not monitored for 


neutrons as part of the NDRP that may have 


worked in 81, I think what Jeff is saying is 


they're going to make sure they look through 


the case file closely for evidence of -- of 


additional work that could have resulted in 


neutron exposure. 


 MR. KOTSCH: (Off microphone) Yeah, 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: So -- so -- but -- I mean -- 


yeah, I -- I just don't want -- I -- I feel a 

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little bit of responsibility here. I -- I mean 


I don't want this to fall through the cracks if 


-- I think we -- we saw through the workgroup 


process that not everyone was monitored for all 


time periods for neutrons that -- that should 


have been --


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and therefore I -- I don't 


know -- I'd have to look back at all my notes 


on 81, but there were certainly questions 


raised as to whether -- so then, you know, it's 


not only if they were in 81 and were badged 


that they should be included. I -- I think 


there could have been other people. At -- at 


least that's my question to NIOSH or to DOL -- 


 MR. KOTSCH: Well, like I said --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- is -- and then if you don't 


know -- I mean we've always been told, you 


know, in the absence of information, if you 


know there were some neu-- potential there, 


maybe you can narrow it to a time period, I 


don't know, but if anyone was in that building 


they should be presumed to have had the 


potential and be in the class, and I -- I just 


want -- I think we owe it to the petitioner for 

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clarification on that issue. 


 MR. KOTSCH: All I can say is it's -- it's not 


final yet, but -- but the intent is once you go 


through those other three screening devices, 


basically, any with the buildings, is -- 


they'll develop for potential for neutron 


exposure. You know, if the person deems that 


they were in a facility that was either a 


plutonium or they were exposed to neutrons. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, well, I -- I don't know 


that we can ge-- get a answer on the specifics, 


but I think we just have -- I -- as -- I guess 


 DR. WADE: I put it on the agenda for December 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and part of the -- I guess 


part of a -- the Board, I think we need to 


follow this because how we define classes going 


forward certainly becomes critical. I -- I'm 


concerned that our class definition is 


something that everyone can live with and we 


serve the petitioners correctly, but also we 


al-- we give DOL enough information that they 


can do an appropriate -- a -- a job that -- in 


the way that we expected it to be implemented, 

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so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thanks. Any other questions? 


 (No responses) 


REVIEW OF SEC PETITION WRITE-UPS
 

Okay. Thank you, Jim. Next we have on the 


agenda review of the SEC petition writeups. We 


-- we just have two actions, and they both were 


very straightforward and the Chair is wondering 


if we even need to review these. The standard 


wording will be used. We have the -- the NUMEC 


posi-- petition which I -- I think Mike made 


and, with the help of our standard template, if 


-- if there's no objection, we'll just ask Mike 


to provide me with -- and Jim, who is 


assisting, to provide us -- or maybe you have 


copies. 


 DR. MELIUS: I have -- I can circulate them if 


people have time (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think it's standard 


wording and straightforward. We don't need to 


take further action on it, and -- 


 DR. MELIUS: And Larry has -- and his staff 


have reviewed --


 DR. ZIEMER: Have looked at it? 


 DR. MELIUS: -- reviewed these. I think Larry 

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has a comment on NUMEC that he wants to gi-- 


bring up. I don't think it necessarily changes 


the letter. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would just add there's also a Y12 rejection letter that -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- I did, so why don't we just 


circulate some of that -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure, let's do that right now 


then. 


 DR. WADE: Right, and on NUMEC now we're 


operating -- until we reach decision that Dr. 


Melius might be conflicted, so again, Larry, if 


your comment on NUMEC is just informational, 


that's fine. If the Board's going to 


deliberate on it, we'll have to take 


appropriate action. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't think there's a 


deliberation point here. I -- it's just a 


comment that I feel needs to be made for the 


record. The draft of the NUMEC recommendation 


letter language is fine as it is couched. 


However, when we draft the Secretary's 


designation letter we will take note of the 

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caveats that are associated with internal and 


external dose that can or cannot be 


reconstructed. Those caveats may be found on 


page 19 of 23 of the evaluation report. They 


are important because they -- they -- caveat 


number one goes to the reliability of the -- 


unreliability, the integrity of the SC-- of the 


CEP data on internal dose. 


And caveat two specifies that uranium bioassay 


data is available from 1960 to 1976. And so if 


you look in that table, we're saying we can 


reconstruct that dose in that way. 


And then caveat three specifies that where 


available external data is included in an 


individual's file, we will use that data to 


reconstruct dose for partial dose 


reconstructions. So this just provides the 


specificity that I think we will make sure is 


included in the Secretary's designation letter. 


I don't think you have to change this current 


letter that the Board is sending forward. Just 


wanted to make sure that you were aware that's 


the intent. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we normally do indicate 


those things that can be partially 

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reconstructed. I think we do have a -- there's 


one sentence in here that refers to components 


of the internal dose, the uranium, from '60 on, 


and occupational medical. And then -- so 


there's an additional component that we -- I 


mean we normally do include those. 


 DR. MELIUS: In -- ac-- in assisting Mike, I -- 


it included the sentence there and I have 


uranium after 1960, but I think it's -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I mean we -- we have in our 


previous letters tried to include the things 


that could be done in the partial dose 


reconstructions. Now maybe we have not covered 


them all. I think that -- we have the ur-- the 


internal uranium, we have the occupational med. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's correct. What I guess 


would be missing would be this comment that 


external data in an individual's file would be 


used for partial dose reconstructions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But isn't -- that's always the 


case, is it not? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That is always the case, so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, so that --


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's why I (unintelligible) 


change your letter. I just want it on the 

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record --


 DR. ZIEMER: No, no. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that that's -- that's the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- intent behind --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- these caveats associated with 


internal and external -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- dose. 


 DR. ZIEMER: 'Cause --


 MR. ELLIOTT: And as we write up the 


Secretary's designation letter -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we'll make sure that they're 


included --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- in that memo. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and that is -- we 


understand that. Right. 


So if there's no objection, I'll -- I'll use 


the -- I'll use this letter -- I -- I -- I can 


see one change that will be made. This occurs 


from an old template. This is not a Special 


Exposure Cohort, this is a class of the Special 

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Exposure Cohort, so that last sentence will -- 


will change to reflect -- enclose the 


supporting documentation where this class of 


the Special Exposure Cohort, so I'll make that 


change. 


 DR. MELIUS: Anybody else has grammatical -- 


that... 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then on the Y-12, it basically 


says that we've evaluated the petition, that we 


concur with the determination and the 


supporting documents, so these are both 


standard letters and I'll take it by consent 


that the Chair should go ahead and -- and 


prepare the final drafts of these. 


 DR. WADE: And for the record, Dr. Ziemer and I 


have secured Dr. Lockey's vote on NUMEC. Dr. 


Lockey voted in the affirmative -- oh, excuse 


me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Lockey voted in the 


affirmative, so the vote on NUMEC is now 11 and 


zero because Dr. Melius was at least -- 


 DR. WADE: Temporarily. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- temporarily conflicted, and 


maybe permanently, but it won't affect the 


outcome. 

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 DR. WADE: When I speak of Dr. Lockey I get all 


choked up. 

 DR. MELIUS: Don't we all. 

 DR. LOCKEY: And I'd say rightfully so. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We have suddenly moved to ­

- we're now a half-hour ahead of schedule, just 


like that. Wanda, may-- do you have a comment 


or question? 


 MS. MUNN: Just a concern whether our letter 


should even refer to the fact that additional 


caveats to what we are saying will be included 


in the NIOSH letter. It --


 DR. ZIEMER: I think it's always -- this -- 


this is the form our letters have always taken. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, I know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry's statement applies -- 


that's always been the case, that partial dose 


reconstructions are done where they can be 


done. So I -- I don't think we have to say 


that. And Larry's just pointing out that they 


-- in their letter to the Secretary, they will 


point that out as they make their 


recommendation, and just to make sure that we 


understand that that is the case. And in fact, 


that's why we make the other statements that we 

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do. We -- we have recognized that certain 


components can be reconstructed. 


 MS. MUNN: Just seemed a little different here 


with this case to me, but that's fine. 


SUBCOMMITTEE AND WORK GROUP REPORTS


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Now we're ready to -- to 


have the subcommittee and workgroup reports. 


Let's begin with --


 DR. WADE: Subcommittee. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's begin with the subcommittee, 


Mark. Actually I'm going to have you do two 


reports, the subcommittee on dose 


reconstruction, and then the workgroup on blind 


reviews. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: The record-setting workgroup. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Yeah, these -- these 


should be both quick updates. 


 The subcommittee met Wednesday and we had a 


meeting actually in between the last Advisory 


Board meeting and this meeting, as well. And 


in both of those meetings we focused on the 


fourth and fifth set of review cases, and at 


yesterday's meeting we made a little more 


progress toward closeout of the fourth and 

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fifth set of -- of cases, 20 cases in each set. 


And we -- we're all shooting for final closeout 


on all those items on the fourth and fifth set 


-- final resolution by the next December 6th 


phone call meeting, anticipating another 


subcommittee meeting somewhere in between now 


and -- and that Board meeting in Cincinnati. 


I've -- I've held off on the exact time on that 


until I find out just how long -- Stu Hinnefeld 


has to look into how long some of the responses 


are going to take, as well as SC&A, but we'll ­

- we'll certainly circulate that information. 


I'm going to -- and -- and before the next 


subcommittee meeting I will also update our 


matrices to show more specific on the -- the 


resolution. A lot of -- I -- I'd say 85 


percent of the items, the findings, have some 


form of resolution at this point in the fourth 


and fifth set. Sometimes the resolution is 


SC&A and NIOSH have agreement on the finding. 


Sometimes the resolution is that the -- further 


work on the finding is deferred to the 


procedures workgroup or to a site profile 


review. It's an issue that was already being ­

- under discussion on those workgroups so we 

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deferred it to those workgroups. But the 


fourth and fifth set should be closed out prior 


to -- and -- and open for discussion for the 


full Board at the December 6th meeting. 


I'll make sure I also circulate the final 


matrices a few weeks before the December 6th 


phone call meeting so that everyone can look 


through all these and be ready to discuss as a 


full Board. 


The sixth set we -- we -- we did a preliminary 


review of the sixth set with NIOSH responses to 


the SC&A findings in our -- in our subcommittee 


meeting in Cincinnati, and we did not really 


discuss that yester-- Wednesday any further, 


but we're beginning the resolution process on 


the sixth set. 


And I think -- the seventh set of cases I think 


SC&A has probably set up meetings with most of 


our -- most of the Board member teams, so 


that's just -- just sort of initiating. SC&A's 


got their report completed, but they're 


discussing individual cases with the -- the 


two- or three-person teams from the Board. 


So that's kind of the status on -- on where the 


subcommittee stands with -- with our reviews. 

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 DR. WADE: Mark, you're expecting batch three, 


four and five to bring to the December meeting? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Three -- three is done, but four 


and five --


 DR. WADE: Four and five --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, three is already gone -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to the Secretary. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Four and --


 DR. ZIEMER: Do you anticipate that we could do 


four and five as one report to the Secretary? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I believe so, yeah, I 


believe so. And that also brings us to a point 


where we have 100 completed, and I think it 


would be a good time to, as a subcommittee, 


develop a summary report of -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, roll-up of the first 100 


cases. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- roll-up report of what we 


found in the first 100 --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- cases. And we'll -- we'll -- 


we'll work on that on the subcommittee as well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And -- and a roll-up report could 


also go to the Secretary to give the sort of 

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the over-- overview of what the first 100 cases 


have shown. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So that's -- that's -- I 


guess that's basically where we are on the 


subcommittee. 


And I can quickly report on the workgroup, 


unless you want me to -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, you --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- open it --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let's see if there's any 


questions --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- any comments or questions -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- on the subcommittee. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- on the subcommittee, yeah. 


 (No responses) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's do the -- the 


workgroup. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The workgroup -- it -- part of 


the -- the subcommittee also was looking at the 


-- assigning blind reviews for SC&A to do, and 


as -- it -- we -- we came up with a -- a 


process, with the help of Paul and Lew and 


others, a process was selected whereby we could 


select cases without revealing the identity in 


a subcommittee meeting so they'd be blind to 

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the contractor. And Paul selected a workgroup, 


as you all know. Wanda and I took suggestions 


from individual members of the subcommittee, 


not a -- not a subcommittee recommendation but 


individual members of the subcommittee selected 


cases from a -- from a -- it was a list 


provided to us by NIOSH. Basically a refined 


list of best estimate type cases. I think 


that's open to ev-- everyone's aware of that. 


And then from that list, we -- each member made 


a selection and Wanda and I met yesterday in 


one of the shortest workgroups ever. We -- we 


looked at all the results together and we have 


two cases that we've selected for blind review 


and I'm -- I'll submit those to NIOSH -- start 


that process and they'll be then forwarded to 


SC&A, obviously without identifiers at that 


point. And that's -- so that's the closeout on 


that workgroup, actually. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did -- it just occurred to me that 


even telling them that these are best estimate 


cases, should we have -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we -- I think we said that 


in -- when we --


 DR. ZIEMER: We agreed to that --

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- we had already agreed to that 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- already, okay, I couldn't -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, that's why --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- remember whether we'd done 


that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, we had agreed to that in 


public so I mean --


 DR. ZIEMER: I mean obviously they would expect 


that's what we would do, but I suppose you 


could argue that maybe -- maybe we should see 


how they handle even that issue -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but nonetheless, the cases are 


selected and they will remain blind to the full 


Board and -- or -- well, let me -- do we -- we 


don't have to approve those -- or do we? We 


can't really approve them. 


 DR. MELIUS: Approve the process. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Approve the process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We would approve the process. 


 DR. WADE: We trust the process. 


 DR. MELIUS: Trust the -- yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So these --

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 DR. WADE: Or not. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- these'll be transmitted how, 


from Stu to -- to SC&A? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, Stu maybe can speak to 


this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: How this will proceed -- 


 DR. WADE: Blind leading the blind. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That was off the record -- off the 


record, Ray. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I'm not offended by that. The 


-- well, I think maybe we'll have a few e-mail 


exchanges on that because exactly what is 


provided I don't know that we've actually 


talked about yet -- of the -- of the file -- of 


the case file. I mean certainly we can't 


provide the entire case file. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: We -- theoretically we will 


provide those pieces of the case file that were 


available on the date the draft dose 


reconstruction was done. I -- you know, we 


could provide that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I -- I think we agreed that 


you would provide what you would provide a dose 


reconstructor starting -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: When they start --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- at the front end of the 


process. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that's it, yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So they would have access to -- to 


the DOE records and the medical information and 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Whatever a -- whatever a 


reconstructor would have at the front end of 


the process -- the CATI reports, the whole 


thing, is it not? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah --


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, we can --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but no --


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- put together -- we can put 


that together, right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But none of the --


 MR. HINNEFELD: And I will provide it to --


 DR. ZIEMER: Not the interviews after 


something's been underway and not the 


intermediate reviews of -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- you know. 

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 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. This would -- they 


would have the information the dose 


reconstructor has. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. Then we'll -- I can 


provide that directly to SC&A or I can provide 


it to the subcommittee or workgroup or however 


you'd like it. It'd probably be -- probably if 


it's two cases, it'd probably fit on one disk, 


so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, do you want to have a copy 


of the -- those two cases and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I guess it doesn't hurt to 


have -- to forward it to SC&A and the 


subcommittee members as -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that -- that seems fine to me, 


yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: That would be the --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let -- let me just ask this, 


and maybe Liz can help us here. If -- if 


copies are provided to the subcommittee 


members, since these are individual cases, they 


still would not be made public, would they? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) 

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(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: No. So we're okay on that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So the subcommittee could have the 


information about what case was provided. 


Okay. It seems okay. Any concerns? Okay, 


thank you. 


Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: I had assumed that they would be 


given all of the information except identifying 


names, numbers -- I had assumed that the 


information -- that kind of information -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, they don't need the -- the 


name -- well, but I think -- 


 MS. MUNN: That kind of information is 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: It's not necessarily redacted 


because you're going to have -- 


 MS. MUNN: That's right, they (unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the whole file is going to have 


information about where they worked and -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, but it would not have -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, they don't need the number, 


obviously --

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 MS. MUNN: Nor the --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the case number. 


 MS. MUNN: Nor Social Security numbers nor 


actual names. 


 DR. ZIEMER: They don't -- they don't -- I 


don't know if -- if -- I don't know if it's 


critical that the name be redacted or not 


because it's not going to enter into the 


determination of the -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: A redaction would make this 


really complicated, from our standpoint. I 


mean if we were to do it -- just provide what 


the dose reconstructor had, I mean the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't think knowing the name 


helps the -- helps the -- the reconstructor, 


per se. 


 MS. MUNN: No, it shouldn't. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No. Okay, thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any other questions on that? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, let's go on to the other committee -- or 


workgroups. Do you have the list handy -- 


 DR. WADE: I do, actually. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe you could just work us 

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through that then. I don't have my list right 


here. 


 DR. WADE: Just reading from the top of the 


list as provided, Rocky Flats site profile and 


SEC petition workgroup; Mark Griffon, chair. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No further report from Rocky 


Flats at this point. 


 DR. WADE: Nevada Test Site site profile 


workgroup; Robert Presley, chair. 


 MR. PRESLEY: We meet -- well, we meet the 25th 


of October in Cincinnati. And if it's all 


right with HHS, 9:00 o'clock, can you all be 


there? We have talked the last two days with 


HHS and also SC&A, and the documents Arjun's 


going through. The TBD will be -- his 


evaluation will be delivered to the Board 


members and HHS right around the 10th. We will 


have a new matrix, hopefully in the next two 


weeks, from HHS. We will be ready to go on the 


25th, hopefully to make a decision on this for 


the NTS meeting in January. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And you have a new member and I 


know you're aware that he-- 


 MR. PRESLEY: That's correct --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- needs to be brought up to speed 

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 MR. PRESLEY: -- and Phillip is being -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- on past documents. 


 MR. PRESLEY: -- Phillip is being added to 


everything, everybody's aware of it and he will 


be getting the same documents the rest of us 


do. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and some -- some past 


documents, if needed. 


 MR. PRESLEY: If needed, yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Hanford site profile and SEC 


petition; Dr. Melius, chair. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I believe I reported on that 

yesterday. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We did report on that. 

 DR. MELIUS: Nothing's happened since. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Not quite as quick as Mark at... 


 DR. WADE: Savannah River Site site profile 


workgroup; Mark Griffon, chair. Note Phillip 


Schofield has been added to this workgroup as 


well. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and we -- we have not met 


since our last meeting. I -- I -- I think that 

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was before the last Board meeting so I already 


reported on that. We did recently get an 


updated report from SC&A on Savannah River, so 


I think it -- that -- that we will schedule a 


meeting shortly on Savannah River to keep that 


process moving. 


There -- there is one -- one question I have on 


Savannah River, maybe just to -- to clarify 


things 'cause I'm concerned about us spinning 


our wheels a little bit on the workgroup. I 


think that the SC&A report is -- is based on 


Rev. 3 and I think there's now a Rev. 4-E 


that's out. And if it's substantially 


different, I -- I -- I'm concerned that we 


start to go through our resolution process on 


Rev. 3 and everything -- all our answers are 


that well, it was addressed in 4-E and then 


we're back at, you know, do we have SC&A start 


to review Rev. 4-E -- so I don't know, maybe -- 


maybe NIOSH can -- can anyone speak to that? 


Is there major -- yeah -- I guess maybe that's 


something we just have to -- I -- I can e-mail 


and --


DR. NETON: Yeah, I -- I'm not familiar -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- clarify that, yeah. 

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DR. NETON: -- at this point. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see the -- the NIOSH liaison 


for that group is who? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Sam. 


 DR. WADE: Sam Glover. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sam? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe have Sam --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'll contact Sam and -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- determine or let you know the 


extent to which that's substantially different 


and --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- if so, then we need to see 


whether or not SC&A needs to look at the new 


material. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I do want to -- I do want 


to get that process moving, but I don't want to 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- waste our time, either, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: SEC issues group, paren, including 


the 250-day issue and preliminary review of 


83.14 SEC petitions; Dr. Melius, chair. Ms. 

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Beach has been added as a member. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. On the 250-day issue, SC&A 


is actively working on a -- a review of a 


number of issues related to the Nevada Test 


Site. I'm not sure we have a schedule on that. 


Maybe Arjun can update me on the -- the timing 


for that, but we will -- I think -- believe -- 


we should be having a workgroup meeting as soon 


as we have a report from -- from SC&A on that 


to -- to work off of and... 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Melius, I can send you a 


report I think by the middle of the month -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, I -- oh -- I 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- based --


 DR. MELIUS: -- I didn't want to -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- based on the preliminary 


materials that I sent you. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Which would be a review of what 


Dr. Neton had --


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- sent us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: While we're talking about this, 


recall that we committed yesterday to asking 


this workgroup to also include the -- the -- 

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 DR. MELIUS: NU-- NUMEC. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- NUMEC --

 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- issues, and I don't know 

whether -- whether SC&A is al-- may have not 


looked at NUMEC, but at least it -- tho-- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, we'll --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- you're aware of that and -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, we -- we'll figure out -- 


but if you remember, this -- this committee's 


trying to come up with a generic -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- approach to it, so -- and we -- 


we're focusing on -- on two sites, the Ames 


site in Iowa and we -- we already have a rep-- 


report on that. We just need to get that -- 


meet with NIOSH about that, and then we have 


this other activity that's -- report that's -- 


will be coming out, as Arjun said, the middle 


of the month. I think we're going to focus on 


those two first, and then I think -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- the question will be --


 DR. ZIEMER: And those -- those may, depending 


on the outcome there, may automatically pick up 

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NUMEC --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- had two things. One was near 


criticality, which is not a criticality, by 


definition, so --


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- so it -- that sort of drops 


out, and the other issue is fires, and I think 


you're looking at fires in other cases anyway, 


so... 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and -- exactly, and -- an-- 


anyway, I -- I think if we -- we have a report 


middle of month we'll be doing a -- hopefully 


doing a workgroup meeting in November and, 


maybe optimistically, resolving something to 


come back to the Board for our January meeting 


for a vote. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Procedures review workgroup; Ms. 


Munn, chair. 


 MS. MUNN: The procedures workgroup met in 


August, the 28th, and are trying to work 


through a very long list of outstanding 


individual findings with respective procedures. 


We have had some exchanges during the interim 

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and met again for a full day meeting just prior 


to this full Board meeting. That meeting 


occurred on Tuesday, October the 2nd. We have 


moved a number of findings through resolution. 


We're working from an action item list right 


now, which still has too large a number of 


unresolved issues on it. It is our 


expectation, especially in light of the fact 


that this last few weeks we've received two 


extremely important responses from SC&A to very 


significant documents that have been released 


in recent months. These will add a small 


number of findings, but very significant 


findings, to our list of outstanding items. 


 We've already advised a number of people that 


one of those reports on Procedure 0092, which 


has generated a great deal of outside interest, 


will be incorporated in our activities but will 


not receive priority attention in view of the 


fact that we will place it in queue so that it 


follows as it should the other significant 


items which we still are addressing. 


We currently have scheduled two, actually 


three, things which we hope will help a little. 


We had a significant discussion with respect to 

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the cumbersome nature of the matrices we are 


currently dealing with. They've reached a 


point where it's difficult for us to move from 


one matrix to the other, and the terminology is 


confusing for everyone. So our -- our -- we --


we are asking our contractor to take a look at 


reformatting. They presented a potential 


format for us and we're going to try that as a 


straw man to see if it works pretty well. We 


have a sub-group of our committee that's going 


to take a look at the straw man that they 


present and we'll convene -- that small group 


will meet by telephone on November 2nd to see 


if we have something that we want to replace 


our current format with. 


Then we will have a meeting -- a telephone 


conference of the entire workgroup on Wednesday 


the 7th of September (sic). That will be --


MS. BEACH: November. 


 DR. ZIEMER: November. 


 MS. MUNN: November, excuse me -- well, no, we 


get to December, too, but yes, November the 


7th. And at that time we will make some 


decisions with respect to the new format and 


what's going to be incorporated on it, how it's 

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going to, hopefully, work. 


Then the group will meet face-to-face on 


December 11th in Cincinnati to undertake the 


new items that have been added to the -- what 


we hope will be a new format at that time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so here's a workgroup that 


has a workgroup. 


 MS. MUNN: We do have a workgroup in our 


workgroup, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


 DR. WADE: The next --


 DR. ZIEMER: No, a question first -- question. 


 DR. MELIUS: Fir-- fir-- first, I'm im-- 


impressed by the energy and activity of -- of ­

- of the workgroup and -- however, I would 


question the issue -- I believe Wanda was 


referring to the recent report that came out on 


the -- the closeout interview process -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- so forth, and I would ask the 


workgroup to reconsider the prioritization of 


that. I -- I think for -- for two reasons. 


One is that I -- I do think it -- it's -- it 


has gotten some publicity and will -- may very 


well continue to get some publicity, and I 

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think it behooves us to be trying to address 


that in as timely fashion as possible. 


Secondly, I believe that -- you know, should 


the -- that one of the recommendations -- 


possible recommendations, I don't want to 


prejudge too much, but I -- for addressing some 


of those issions (sic) are -- are QA/QC issues 


within the -- the program. Once upon a time a 


long time ago, many years ago, we did have a 


review of that process which raised some of 


these issues. I think it was -- I think Tony 


Andrade was actually -- chaired that -- that 


workgroup --


 MS. MUNN: I believe so. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- I wa-- I was a member. I don't 


remember who else was on it, but -- but -- but 


I think that's -- we may want to revive that as 


-- that workgroup or a new workgroup to -- to 


focus on -- on that issue 'cause I think that, 


at least to me, is one of the issues that's 


raised by -- by that report and I think we need 


to decide how to move forward and I -- and I'd 


hate to have us in a position of having the 


program under criticism and the -- and the 


Board not taking action -- working in 

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conjunction with -- with NIOSH to address what, 


you know, at least is -- to me is a very 


serious potential problem. 


 MS. MUNN: I did not mean to infer that we were 


going to put Procedure 92 under a barrel 


somewhere. Au contraire. Quite necessary for 


our next step is for the agency to have an 


opportunity to review those findings and 


respond to them in depth. Because they are of 


significant interest, we would anticipate 


having feedback from the agency by the time we 


have our next face-to-face meeting in 


Cincinnati, and I -- I think the agency's aware 


of that. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay, thank you. I -- I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: That was not what you -- or was -- 

at least what I understood from your report. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sounded like it was going to the 


end of some long queue -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Exactly, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I think what Wanda's saying 


is actually we're going to be awaiting some 


response and then go from there. 


 DR. MELIUS: Which is appropriate, I know. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And one other thing I was going 


to -- along those lines, we had a discussion in 


the -- in the procedures workgroup. One of the 


recommendations was -- from SC&A, and I -- 


again, I agree that the agency's still 


reviewing these, but one recommendation was to 


have the Board actually do follow-up interviews 


with some of the individuals that they had 


looked at in their inve-- in their review. And 


I know this is a issue -- I -- I think I -- I 


submitted some lang-- you know, sort of 


language to be considered by NIOSH as to 


whether we could do this --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and I think we've had this 


discussion before about the Board interviewing 


claimants and --


 DR. ZIEMER: Actually I think we were going to 


suggest that at this point in the meeting Mark 


officially raise the question, were we not? 


The question is really the legal aspects of 


going back and physically rev-- interviewing 


people. Is that not -- or maybe you want to 


frame --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right, I ac-- I actually -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the question for us. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- don't have it written down. I 

think Lew might even have it, or -- but I -- it 


-- it -- the difference -- the difference -- I 


think one distinction that we have to make here 


is that we want to re-interview for the 


purposes of -- of reviewing the effectiveness 


of the interview process, not -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Not the content. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- not the content of -- right, 


right, so not getting new information for the 


DR process, but how -- just to -- interview 


them to see was the -- was the closeout 


interview, you know --


 DR. ZIEMER: Effective and --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- effective and --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- useful and --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, what -- what are 


their -- get -- get their insight on the 


closeout interview process, not, you know, do 


you have more information to offer to your DR. 


That -- that wasn't -- that's not the purpose ­

- that wouldn't be the purpose of this if we -- 


if we chose to do it, and we're still not -- 

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you know, the workgroup's not in a position -- 


'cause we haven't heard back from the agency, 


but if -- if we go that route -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: If the Board --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- decides that we should do that, 


can we do it legally. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So --


 DR. WADE: If it's the sense of the Board that 


I bring you back an answer to that question in 


December, then I will. I do have your words -- 


I don't have them in front of me -- so I know ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- precisely what the question is, 


and we'll seek a legal opinion and bring it -- 


bring back a policy judgment in December. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So Board members, so you 


understand what Mark is asking, there's a 


recommendation in the -- what -- what's the 


name of the report? It's an SC&A -- or a -- 


 MS. MUNN: Procedure 92. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, it -- I -- the -- the -- 


 MS. MUNN: Closeout procedure --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Closeout interview procedure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, the closeout interview 


procedure, and there -- 


 DR. WADE: I think Liz has --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we have not necessarily adopted 


the recommendations, but should we, can we do 


it. 


 DR. WADE: Liz, can you read Mark's words? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Sure. One of the 


recommendations of SC&A's review of Proc. 92 


was the Board interview those claimants who 


were the subject of the SC&A review to gain a 


better understanding of the claimants' opinion 


on the effectiveness of the closeout interview 


process. If the workgroup/Board accepts SC&A's 


recommendation, can the Board conduct such 


interviews with the narrow purpose of gaining 


insight from the claimants' standpoint on the 


effectiveness of the closeout interview 


process. 


That's the question we'll address. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I couldn't have said it better. 


 DR. WADE: You did say that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: In fact that's what you said. 

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 MS. MUNN: You did. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So we're not asking the Board to 


make a determination as to whether there should 


be an interview at this point. That's an SC&A 


recommendation. It has to go through the 


workgroup. The workgroup will make a 


recommendation to the full Board on that issue. 


Should the Board decide that it does wish to 


adopt that recommendation, then Mark's question 


is can we legally do it, and that's what the -- 


is there any objection to asking that the -- 


that Lew pursue that and determine, prior to us 


actually making a Board determination that 


we're adopting that as a policy, to -- to go 


ahead and get the legal background for it? Any 


objection? 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I -- I'd just like a 


clarification -- I mean I would prefer that we 


pursue this not as, you know, requesting a 


legal opinion but a discussion with our -- our 


counsel over that issue, including the 


circumstances where it might be allowed, not 


allowed, what are -- what are some of the 


concerns about it, so we have a -- 'cause it's 


-- this is not the only instance and -- again, 

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once upon a time a long time ago, we -- we 


discussed this when we were initially doing the 


-- going through how we were going to do 


individual case reviews and -- and we deferred 


on this for several years and -- and some of us 


have some pretty strong opinions on it but -- 


but I -- so I'd much rather have a discussion 


at the December meeting, not a -- you know, an 


all out yes or no with -- or if it's a yes or 


no, at least let's have some discussion on -- 


on how we would -- would do that and so forth. 


 DR. WADE: Makes sense, yes. We'll --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that -- that's fine then, 


too. 


 DR. WADE: -- put a discussion of that on the 


agenda. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think it's part of the same 


thing, what are the bot-- ground rules under 


which you can --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, exactly, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


ground rules, just the narrow -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) that I... 

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 DR. MELIUS: I mean just --

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll take it by consent that -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I mean --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we should pursue that. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah -- yeah, I mean there's -- 

there's different issues, there's issues regar­

- there's privacy issues, ther-- there's also 


issues about the nature of the -- the process 


of -- of where things are in terms of 


adjudication and so forth, so that -- that's 


why I think it's more helpful to have a 


discussion rather than... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Okay, next workgroup? 


 DR. WADE: The use of surrogate data; Dr. 


Melius, chair. 


 DR. MELIUS: The surrogate data workgroup had a 


very quick meeting yesterday. In fact we -- we 


didn't even have a chance to sit down. And ha­

- have a way forward with SC&A. We need to do 


a little work to clarify exactly what they will 


do as -- as their next step. They have already 


done an in-- inventory of procedures, 


evaluations of what the situations which NIOSH 


is -- are using surrogate data in various parts 


of -- various parts of this process and -- 

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think we have a way of -- have to try to review 


that process in a generic way and to be able to 


go forward and deliberate on that as a -- as a 


workgroup. So as I said, we need to talk a 


little bit more with SC&A to get that process 


forward -- figure the timing -- again I think 


it's something that would expect we'd have at 


least one meeting befo-- of that workgroup 


before our January meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: As is our custom, I, as the 


Technical Project Officer, would work with your 


workgroup chair in terms of tasking SC&A. I do 


think that this would fall under their task to 


review procedures, and I'm comfortable with 


that. But the details are yet to be determined 


but again, you've empowered your workgroup 


chairs to -- to task the contractor and I'll 


work with Dr. Melius. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: The workgroup on worker outreach; 


Mike Gibson, chair. 


 MR. GIBSON: We've been working with Larry's 


staff and they, through, ORAU, put together 


some training last week for us to get us up to 

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speed, give us access to the WISPR database, 


the -- the worker comment database. So we're 


starting to look into that and see what we can 


-- information we can get out of that. 


They've also -- Larry's staff's provided us 


with some dates for the various type of worker 


meetings they put on, the -- the town hall 


meeting, the worker outreach, et cetera. I 


attended one a couple weeks ago and couple 


members of the working group are going to 


attend a -- try to attend a meeting in a couple 


weeks in Texas City so we can get a feel for 


the different types of meetings. And then 


hopefully, if we can, we'll try to have a 


meeting sometime in the -- the late 


October/November time frame, if we can 


coordinate it when everyone might be in town 


for the other working group meetings. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Linde Ceramics site 


profile workgroup; Dr. Roessler, chair. 


DR. ROESSLER: I'm pleased to have something to 


report this time. We held our last meeting on 


March 26th and actually that was our first 


meeting. At that time we did the usual going 


over the SC&A matrix. We made some assignments 

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to NIOSH. Also at that time we had the 


expectation that there would be more urinalysis 


data that would be pertinent to the Linde site 


and we have learned recently that there are no 


more urinalysis data. They -- the records were 


mistakenly identified to be Linde but they -- 


they were not. 


Nevertheless, Joe Guido at ORAU is working up 


the -- through the rest of the assignments. He 


has a preliminary report. The final will be 


available to us before November 15th. So 


because we will get that, we will be able to 


schedule another workgroup meeting, and I'll 


talk about that in a minute. 


There is something else I think I need to 


report. I received this from Chris Crawford 


just the other day, and I'm going to read it so 


that I have it exactly right. 


He said (reading) The DOL has decided that the 


Linde site is a DOE site, except for employees 


who worked exclusively at the Linde lab, 


Building 14, which remains an AWE site. 


He continues (reading) This has several 


implications, as I understand it. First it 


means that some contractors at the Linde site, 

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mostly D&D workers during the cleanup from 1950 


through 1953, are now eligible claimants. 


Second, the main Linde site will no longer have 


a residual radiation period, which will limit 


claims based on employment after 1953. And 


then third, by implication, only employees who 


worked exclusively at Building 14 will be able 


to include the residual period in their claims. 


So we have some new information to work with. 


I'm glad Mark is still here because we are 


trying to get a workgroup meeting set up as -- 


this has to do with you, as -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 


DR. ROESSLER: -- I'm going to ask something 


from you. It's very difficult if we don't get 


the final report or we -- let's say we get it 


November 15th, SC&A needs some time with it, 


the workgroup needs some time with it. That's 


a bad time of year, I have found talking to 


workgroup members, to try and get together. So 


what I'm proposing, and I haven't talked to the 


NIOSH people or SC&A specifically about this, 


but several workgroup members suggested January 


8th, which is the first day of our Board 


meeting. It's the -- I would suggest the 

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morning of January 8th. I know Mark usually 


has his dose reconstruction meeting starting 


about 9:30. I'm kind of hoping we can meet 


about 8:00, push you back to about 10:00 so we 


could have a couple hours to meet that morning. 


And if that would work with you, I will then 


contact the rest of the people involved and 


we'll see what we can set up, so that's 


tentative right now. 


 The only other thing I'd like to report is the 


transcript from our March meeting is available. 


I believe just to the workgroup members right 


now. It's not on the web site yet. 


 DR. WADE: So for the record, we'll try on 


January 8th first to have a workgroup on Linde 


and then about 10:00 a subcommittee meeting. 


As Dr. Melius mentions, we can push back the 


start of the Board meeting if you need time. 


DR. ROESSLER: I'll have to check with SC&A and 


NIOSH first. I haven't done that. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Well, let me know and we'll 


make that happen. 


 DR. MELIUS: I don't want to take up much time 


at this meeting, but I am puzzled by the -- the 


status of -- of some of the issues you -- you 

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have -- you raised regarding, you know, 


residual time periods and -- and -- and so 


forth and would like to get some more 


information on that if you have any or if 


someone can provide it. It's --


DR. ROESSLER: I actually do --


 DR. MELIUS: -- very puzzling. 


DR. ROESSLER: I felt the same way. It was 


rather new to me. I talked with -- Paul was 


not aware, but either it's new inf-- 


 DR. ZIEMER: First I heard it was today, as 


well, and --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I --


DR. ROESSLER: It's new information. I did 


talk to Jeff, and I don't know if you want to 


make any further comments on it at this point 


or... 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not sure we even know what 


brought about the change -- 


DR. ROESSLER: That was my question to Jeff, 


and I'm not sure we know. 


 MR. KOTSCH: I have to admit that I -- I'm not 


that intimately familiar with that change. 
I 


don't usually get involved with those things. 


We can check into it and get back to you. I'm 

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confused as to why --


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe Pat Worthington can help us 

with this. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well --

 DR. WORTHINGTON: It's really the same kind of 


response. We certainly are aware of the -- of 


the mixed time periods and whether it's AWE or 


DOE, and I was just going to update the people 


back in Germantown, but we can look into it 


further and -- and get back -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that --


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't think we -- we know 


exactly what's happened so -- 


DR. ROESSLER: Well, somebody's on the phone 


maybe. 


 DR. MELIUS: What -- what we could -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: We have someone on the phone that 


maybe --


UNIDENTIFIED: Joe Guido. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Joe Guido's on the phone. Okay, 


Joe. He's the guy that -- 


MR. GUIDO: (Unintelligible) EEOICPA circular 


number DOL, that might be helpful. It's 


circular number 07-07 published September 5th, 


2007. I think that's available on the web at 

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the DOL site. That would be the reference to 


verify at least the text of the decision. So I 


don't know if that's helpful to you guys, 


but... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Was -- I'm sorry, was that a -- 


was that --


 DR. WADE: Circular 07-07. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Joe, could you repeat that again, 


the reference? 


MR. GUIDO: It's -- the circular number is 07­

07, and it was published September 5th, 2007. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And was that on the DOL web site 


then? 


MR. GUIDO: (Unintelligible) this e-mailed to 


me, but I believe you can get these if you -- I 


think I did a Google search on just EEOICPA 


circular number 07-07 and I was able to find it 


again. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 


DR. ROESSLER: Thank you. 


MR. GUIDO: Official --


DR. ROESSLER: Thank you, Joe. 


MR. GUIDO: -- (unintelligible) these are, but 


they are -- it is published by Department of 


Labor. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, some of us may take a look 


at that and then if we're still puzzled we may 


still need a briefing at our next meeting -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we -- we will -- 


 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) Cleveland. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think the chairman of the 


workgroup is also --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- frankly, puzzled at this point. 


DR. ROESSLER: We can probably report on that 


in our December conference call. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Captured it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: More, Gen, or done? 


DR. ROESSLER: I'm done. 


 DR. WADE: Workgroup on LANL site profile and 


SEC petition; Mark Griffon, chair. 


 MR. GRIFFON: LANL workgroup has not met. I --


I think we're waiting still for a updated site 


profile from NIOSH, and I don't think it makes 


sense to have any meeting, al-- although, you 


know, we have a outstanding SEC -- it -- it's 

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contingent on this -- this change -- 


modification in the site profile, so I don't 


know if anyone from NIOSH can give me a sense 


of where that stands. But I will follow up on 


that with the NIOSH contact and, you know, as 


soon as it makes sense to schedule that, 


obviously we want to get it on the -- on the -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- agenda. 


 DR. WADE: Three points in closing. Blockson, 


Fernald and Chapman, I didn't ask for those 


reports. We had reports -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: We had them yesterday. 


 DR. WADE: -- yesterday on those. Dr. Lockey 


has asked -- there is a -- a workgroup that's 


inactive on conflict of interest. He asked 


that I explain again why and place the 


responsibility where it exists. The 


Secretary's position -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. WADE: -- the Secretary's position is that 


this workgroup has not been chartered to look 


at conflict of interest issues -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: This -- this Board has not. 

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 DR. WADE: This Board has -- I'm sorry, this 


Board has not been charged with looking at 


conflict of interest issues. The argument that 


that is part of their normal administrative 


procedures has not been accepted to this point. 


An attempt to modify the charter has been 


rejected at this point because the enabling 


legislation that has given rise to the Board 


didn't call for conflict of interest. We are 


continuing to raise the issue. I think the 


work of that workgroup would be well to have 


proceed, but we are not in position to do that. 


I would ask that you hold it as inactive for a 


bit longer in hopes that maybe we can break the 


logjam. But right now that's where it is. It 


is no reflection on the workgroup or its chair. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Does that complete the list? 


 DR. WADE: That's the list. I have one other 


request by Mike, very quickly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, uh-huh. 


 DR. WADE: You know, we have your contractor 


ta-- funded now for this next fiscal year. We 


have to start to give them work. Again, dose 


reconstructions will begin to flow. We need to 


think about procedures we would want them to 

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review next year, and I think out of the 


procedures workgroup we're starting to identify 


those. I would like to put this item on the 


agenda for December. 


We also need to think about additional site 


profiles, either new site profiles or site 


profiles that are indeed -- have been reissued, 


to have them reviewed. So I would like to put 


that on the agenda for December. 


One action that I intend to take, SC&A has been 


reviewing Hanford. Again, we now have -- we're 


now into the phase of the second part of the 


Hanford petition being considered. I consider 


that, and I've talked to Dr. Melius, that this 


would be considered as a new SEC review for 


SC&A this year that we're in now, and they 


could work and bill that accordingly. I think 


that's appropriate. 


We do need to think about site pros-- profiles 


for them and procedures for them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can --


 DR. ZIEMER: Comment? Yeah, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I just -- and -- and I agree, we 


can talk more in depth in the December meeting, 

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but I was wondering myself -- there's TIB-6000 


and 6001, and I don't know if they're under our 


procedures workgroup currently or if they're 


not. And if they are, I'm almost thinking they 


might -- we might want to pull those out of the 


procedures workgroup and have a separate 


workgroup and task for those. Those are 


humongous efforts. I think they're basically 


mini site profile reviews for a lot of these 


uranium -- or AWE sites, and I don't know if 


we've tasked --


 DR. WADE: We have tasked SC&A with those 


reviews --


 MR. GRIFFON: We have? Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- out of -- with last year's 


funding, as I (unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay, with last year's 


funding. 


 DR. WADE: But the workgroup question remains. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Well, if it -- if it's -- 


if it's in process, it's probably fine to leave 


it in the -- in the same workgroup. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, if the -- if the workgroup 


reaches a point where they think that that is, 


in itself, a full effort, it could be broken 

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out at some point. 


 MS. MUNN: It was my assumption that the 


workgroup would have the responsibility for 


looking to -- at the two basic documents, at 


6000 and 6001, and that the supplements would 


fall under the issue of individual site 


reviews. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, okay. 


 MS. MUNN: But it seemed logical to me, but 


that -- we may --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, and we did task -- 


 MS. MUNN: -- need to discuss that -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- separately I think on the BBs ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, that's probably fine 'cause 


the supplements is where you get into the real 


site-specific (unintelligible) -- 


 MS. MUNN: Exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) we have 


(unintelligible) those, that's fine. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: I think there is an open issue that 


we need to talk about 'cause, as Chris pointed 


out, they're grouped maybe not by site-


specific, but they might be AWEs uranium and 

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AWEs thorium, so I don't -- we wouldn't want to 


fall through the cracks. I think it's worth 


talking about in December. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: And that's the workgroup reports. 


DR. ROESSLER: May I add --


 DR. ZIEMER: Gen. 


DR. ROESSLER: Using Joe Guido's hints, I went 


on Google and I did find this report he 


referred to, not -- not real easily, but I do 


have it, so I will send to the Board members 


the place to find it, or I'll just send you the 


report. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just send -- send us the report, 


yeah. 


DR. ROESSLER: I just copied it on my flash 


stick, so I'll send it to you. 


BOARD WORKING TIME: TRACKING OF BOARD ACTIONS


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. I think we can move 


along here. These next items -- we can 


probably get through them even before lunch. 


We have some issues on tracking, and we -- we 


talked a little bit in a preliminary way at our 


last meeting. I think it may have been the 


phone call meeting, even; I don't recall now. 

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In the meantime, we've developed sort of a 


prototype tracking matrix to keep track of site 


profiles and -- and SECs, and of course we're 


tracking the -- the transcripts and so on 


separately, but Lew, you -- you want to lead us 


through the -- the status of the tracking 


documents now? 


 DR. WADE: Oh, Zaida, I just want you to be in 


the room now, that's all. You -- just sit with 


us and listen to... 


Zaida's put together these matrices. There are 


two parts to it. There'll be the status part 


and then the results of the Privacy Act part 


that Dr. Melius wishes to speak about. 


If you look at the SEC matrix, all we're trying 


to do is now to capture all petitions that have 


-- the Board has acted on and that are in 


process, and I need to know if this is useful, 


if there are other elements that -- that you 


would like to see us track. 


In terms of the Privacy Act issue, if you look 


at the column in the middle that looks like the 


dates of SC&A reports, it's those documents 


that would appear on the web site. And I 


believe at this point -- and I -- I'd look to 

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counsel -- that all or all but the last two 


that had been received have been cleared 


through the Privacy Act and posted. 


 MS. HOWELL: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


with our point of contact at SC&A that we (on 


microphone) run all documents through, we do 


not have any currently -- any SC&A documents 


currently awaiting review in our queue. We 


expect to receive a couple of documents from 


SC&A in the next week or so, so we're up to 


date at this point. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: But now if -- those are the only 


documents that are being tracked. If the Board 


has a desire to see another array of 


information tracked, then I need to know what 


that it. It's a little bit more diffuse when 


we talk about site profiles, but this is sort 


of your SEC work. My plan would be to update 


it, you know, before every meeting -- a week 


before every meeting and bring it to you. If 


there's other information you would like, I'd 


be pleased to supply it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I haven't had a chance to look at 

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the -- the content here in detail, but I -- it 


appears that as soon as the -- it's -- well, 


let me -- I'll just simply ask it this way. At 


what point will something appear on the list? 


As soon as it's qualified, we would add it to 


the list and then we can track it as it 


progresses through the system? 


 DR. WADE: My trigger has been as soon as it's 


presented to the Board. I mean I -- I'm -- I'm 


establishing this as the Board's work. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: So once an evaluation report is 


presented to the Board, it triggers inclusion. 


We could do something else if you want, or 


qualified --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the -- the only advantage of 


having the list of qualified ones, it would 


give us an -- we could anticipate what's coming 


down the road. I think we know if it's 


qualified there's going to be an ER coming. 


 DR. WADE: We try and use LaVon's presentation 


for that purpose --


 DR. ZIEMER: But maybe that will -- 


 DR. WADE: -- but we could --


 DR. ZIEMER: I simply ask the Board -- it would 

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make the list a little longer, but what's -- 


what do you think about that? 


 DR. WADE: It's easy to do. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I think it'd be beneficial for 


us. You know, we get a lot of these that are 


coming down, and unfortunately I know for me 


that there's -- they kind of run together. 


It'd be nice for us to be able to look and see 


what we've got coming toward us. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) pending? 


 DR. ZIEMER: One of -- one of the things also 


to mention, this is not cast in concrete. I 


think we do want to try this, or something 


close to this. If this turns out to be 


unwieldy or if we need more information, we 


need to get some reaction. May want to try 


this and -- what we would do, basically, would 


be at each meeting we'd have this -- the -- the 


latest version before us so that -- and -- and 


I'm not sure whether we would simply revise 


this monthly or revise this in connection with 


each meeting. 


 DR. WADE: Well, my plan was a week or two 


before each Board meeting -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: We would have (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. WADE: -- I would send it to you. Now I --


for Dr. Melius's purposes, we could add a 


column that would show the date posted of the 


SC&A report, if you would like to see that. 


It's not on this. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. I mean I would like some 


tracking of the Privacy Act thing, or -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: What -- what we're talking about 


is the date of the report versus when it's 


available on -- on the line. That's -- those 


are the two, are they not? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I mean we've had in the -- 


the past some significant delays in that 


process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think those two pieces of 


information would tell that picture. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and -- do that. And so I --


that -- that would be fine, I think. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It would be the date of the 


unredacted report and the date posted, or 


something like that. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: That'd be fine. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that would... 

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 DR. WADE: So I would add a column next to the 


dates of SC&A reports to show the date that it 


was posted. That would be (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: And the date -- versus the date it 

was issued. 

 DR. WADE: Well, we have the date issued. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so that's the issue date 


here, not the posting date. 


 DR. MELIUS: And -- and if -- if the process 


smoothes out and it turns out we're not having 


problems, then you know, it's -- 


 DR. WADE: Well, one way to see that we don't 


have the problem again is to continue tracking. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah, and that's -- that's 


true, too. 


I -- I -- I have some --


 DR. WADE: Okay, Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- re-- related questions and -- 


like to bring up and it -- sort of a cross 


between this issue and the issue of the -- the 


web site and so forth is that there are a 


number of documents that are produced that -- 


that I -- for workgroup meetings. They're sort 


of technical backgrounds. They small technical 


documents and -- and so forth that are 

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discussed in -- in workgroup meetings and -- 


and are hard for the petitioners and others to 


keep track out -- of and understand what's -- 


what's happening with them if they miss the 


meeting or then there's this delay with the 


transcript. I'd like to think about if there's 


some way of -- of reporting on those so at 


least people are aware of what documents were 


discussed at the -- the meetings and, you know, 


with some parentheses of -- of what might be 


issues with them. I mean some may have, you 


know, Privacy Act information in them. Others 


-- there may be other difficulties in releasing 


them, but -- but at least there -- there's some 


transparency to what's being under 


consideration and should people have, you know, 


legitimate need for them, I -- I think it would 


be -- be useful to -- they can request them, 


you know, appropriately. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Jim, are you referring to 


other technical documents that may fall outside 


of this --

 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- these or --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: We have matrices --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that actually -- 


 DR. WADE: We have matrices that are prepared. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: When you go to the --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


 DR. WADE: -- site profile sheet -- I just 


talked about the SEC sheet. Now the site 


profile sheet starts to make Dr. Melius's 


point. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, there are some matrices 


here, but I think there are also other 


technical documents that come into play. Maybe 


-- maybe we could think about whether there's 


another separate document which would track -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and we'd have to identify what 


those -- kind of documents those are -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and what it is we want to 

track. 

 DR. WADE: And the procedure --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

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 DR. WADE: Let's assume we'd had a list of 


them. You have to decide what it takes to get 


on the list. One way is the workgroup chair 


identifies a document. Mark talked about that, 


he did that --


 DR. ZIEMER: That we want to track. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 DR. WADE: Once he identifies it, it's on a 


matrix, I can track it. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. Yeah, I mean my -- my 


concern is -- this has happened is as we get to 


-- we're trying to resolve a -- partic-- an -- 


an SEC about evaluation and we're in the last 


day, we're about to vote and -- and somebody, 


either our workgroup chair or somebody from 


NIOSH gets up to the microphone and says "and 


we showed you this document at the last 


workgroup meeting" and it's the first -- rest 


of the Board's heard about it, let alone, you 


know, people that are -- public that -- that 


are -- you know, about it and I think it -- it 


certainly doesn't look good and -- in those 


circumstances and I think we need some way of 


sort of notifying and -- and -- and 


communicating about that information. 

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 DR. WADE: Maybe I can bring Mark up to speak 


'cause he has the mo-- by far the most 


experience on it. 


We started, Mark, to talk about matrices on SEC 


and site profiles, and on these matrices we 


have the designation of SC&A reports and dates 


of those reports. We're going to add a column 


as to when those reports were posted. 


Dr. Melius raises the question that you raised 


earlier, that during the workgroup process 


there are certain ad hoc white papers that come 


up. They appear, we ask for a -- an 


understanding on a point, a document appears. 


It's not an SC&A report necessarily. We need a 


way to track those and make sure that those are 


posted in a timely way. It seems to me that 


the workgroup chair holds the key to that. But 


I --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: So the workgroup chair could tell me 


of documents that need to be added to a 


tracking matrix and I can track them. But the 


way onto that matrix is the workgroup chair. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- yeah, I think you're 


right. I mean I think -- if -- if we had a -- 

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and it may not be perfect, but the action list 


that we try to generate during these -- during 


the workgroup meetings and the SEC process, 


oftentimes an action will be -- you know, NIOSH 


will give a -- you know, we'll respond to this 


question, you know, and the response is just a 


-- a white paper, a Word document, it's not a ­

- you know, so in that case... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me add that the proposed new 


matrix that SC&A has proposed to Wanda's 


workgroup may address some of that. They have 


a -- and -- and I think John -- probably offline -- you need to make some of the workgroup 


chairs and -- aware of the form that's going to 


take because that will provide an ongoing 


picture of how issues in -- in some of these 


matrices are being resolved and will -- will 


address some of that. I think -- at -- at 


least the early version of it looks pretty 


good. It may not take care of all of these 


'cause we may still want to have an overview of 


documents that are being tracked and where that 


stands overall. But... 


DR. MAURO: I agree, I think that the proposed 


method that we're going to experiment with, try 

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out real soon, lends itself to a trigger or a 


hook to other documents that may be produced as 


a result of direction -- see, the way -- the 


new format is (unintelligible) of such a nature 


that each working group is going to have 


certain directions, very clear. On this 


working group we gave NIOSH this direction, we 


gave SC&A this direction, to produce this 


product. So that's sort of like a very nice 


place as your hook to say okay, that means 


there's -- there's a document that's gong to be 


moving through the system, a white paper, 


whatever, so --


 DR. ZIEMER: Which could --


DR. MAURO: -- that might be --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- then appear --


DR. MAURO: -- that might be --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- on a tracking list. 


DR. MAURO: -- the link I -- I -- yeah. Now 


I'm on the phone -- the -- I'm on the mike, 


could I just have a quick question? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: Is that okay? During the 


discussion of TBD-6000 a mention was made of 


6001. Just want to let the -- the Board know 

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that we have not been directed to look at 6001. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. MAURO: The second point is we have 


completed our 6000 review and delivered it as 


part of Task Order III. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


DR. MAURO: But I did hear some language, some 


discussion that the expectation may be that the 


appendix BB portion of that work which was 


authorized -- along this sort of connect at the 


hip -- which deals with General Steel 


Industries, which is active right now and we're 


working our way through it and hope to have a 


report ready by the end of this month, but I've 


been handling that as part of Task III also. 


If you would like, we could -- we're -- it's -- 


we're still in the middle of it. I could shift 


it into a Task I site profile category and it 


would be managed in that matter, so I -- I look 


for some direction on that. 


 DR. WADE: Not necessary at this point, John. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Maybe in -- we'll revisit that. 
I 


would like, while John raised it, is the 


procedures workgroup, is the Board comfortable 

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with tasking SC&A to begin to look at 6001? It 


seems to me --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- something we're going to do, we 


could have them start. 


 MS. MUNN: I'd like for the workgroup to talk 


about that at the same time we're talking about 


exactly how to handle Allegheny, General Steel, 


et cetera. At this juncture we have done both 


those things with respect to 6000 in the 


procedures workgroup, but this is -- this is 


the telling time when we will need to make 


decisions about whether to proceed in that way. 


And hopefully John's right. With our new 


format we hope that will sort of fall out and 


it will certainly lead us to have an extended 


discussion on exactly how to handle the issue 


of white papers, where they will appear in the 


public documents, et cetera. 


 DR. WADE: Wanda, might it be possible on the 


November 7th procedures workgroup call to 


address the issue of tasking SC&A with the 


review of 6001? 


 MS. MUNN: I will put it on the agenda. 


 DR. WADE: Please. Oh, we just want to keep 

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our -- your contractor working. 


 MS. MUNN: I don't think we have a problem with 


that on procedures. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Josie? 


MS. BEACH: I just want you to explain the -- 


Lew, the Board's meetings petition call-in. 


 DR. WADE: On which of the matrices? 


MS. BEACH: The SE-- the SEC. 


 DR. ZIEMER: How many times (unintelligible)? 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) Just the number 


of (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: Correct. Correct, the number of 


Board meetings where the petition was 


discussed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Would it be better to have the -- 


MS. BEACH: A date put in there? 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- dates -- dates in there, yeah, 


'cause then they can find the transcripts, is ­

- I think that'd be the interest, right. 


 DR. WADE: Good suggestion, thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: While you're talking about the 


form, the -- the last column on the SEC form is 


-- is not the decision of the SEC retary but of 


the Secretary. 


 DR. WADE: Interesting use of letters. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: We've (unintelligible) the SEC 


along there, but --


 DR. WADE: All the letters are right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All the letters are right, it's 


the Secretary's decision. 


Okay, other comments. Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Very good review, Paul. Glad you 


caught that. I -- I'd just like to bring up 


one other issue. It's related to the Privacy 


Act review. It's not quite germane to this -- 


what we're talking about here, but -- but I -- 


just a reminder. The -- I -- we've talked in 


the past and we've -- I think have steps in 


place, for the most part, to assure that this 


doesn't happen, but -- but I have a very 


serious concern that is part of any review 


that's done prior to the Board receiving a 


document that it be limited only to the in-- 


stated intent, which is Privacy Act review, and 


I -- you know -- you know, classified 


information review, that there not be any 


attempt or any appearance of an attempt to try 


to alter a document that -- that goes to the 


Board as it -- it passes through -- through 


NIOSH and I'm concerned about that with some 

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recent documents and I would hope that we -- 


NIOSH be very careful -- do that. When there 


is a need to do it, I think we should -- I 


think we have steps in place to, you know, talk 


with the Board members ap-- appropriately and ­

- and -- and consult and so forth if there's an 


issue about something being made public. But ­

- but I -- I think it would be a potential 


disaster for this -- the credibility of this 


committee and our processes if that should take 


place. 


 DR. WADE: Understood. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let's see, Josie, do 


you have another comment? No? Wanda, another 


comment? 


 MS. MUNN: No, I'm sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any -- any other comments? 


I think what's being proposed here is we will 


try this tracking and as we get experience, we 


may modify it further. But hopefully this will 


be a tool for us to keep a handle on all of the 


different pieces of what this Board is doing. 


So thank you very much, Zaida; thank you, Lew, 


and we -- we look forward to the regular 


updates of these. And if we need to add 

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another matrix for special documents, why, we 


can add that at --


 DR. WADE: We can indeed. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- some point. I think we've 


covered the tracking of transcripts. We've 


covered tracking of Board actions. Future 


plans. 


FUTURE PLANS AND MEETING


 DR. WADE: Two things that -- I gave you a 


piece of paper that has Board meeting dates 


proposed out to February of 2009. I need 


feedback as to whether there is a need to 


modify any of those dates. We have cast in 


stone, theoretically, through June of 2000-andsome-year -- 8? But beyond that, they are 


proposed. Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- I have a -- would -- 


believe I have difficulty with the dates for 


September 2nd through 4th due to another NIOSH-


related meeting that I have that's the first 


Wednesday of every month, and this would -- 


case it's -- it somewhat depends on location, 


but I would have to -- you know, if we had a 


meeting on the west coast, I would meet -- have 


to miss the entire -- 'tire meeting because of 

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the Wednesday -- this is a -- you've chosen a 


Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I believe. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And can you tell us when Labor Day 


is in -- in --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) It's the 1st. 


 DR. MELIUS: It's the 1st. That's the --


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) Literally, so 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, so moving it up is... 


 DR. WADE: Not possible. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I --


 DR. WADE: So maybe go to the next -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that's going to be bad, I 


think, anyway. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so let's look -- I brought a 


calendar. Let's just move it back. And we're 


talking about 2008, good Lord, when did that 


happen? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) When are you 


going to move back (unintelligible)? 


 DR. BRANCHE: To the following week. 


 DR. WADE: We're proposing that the meeting 


scheduled for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th be moved to 


the 9th, 10th and 11th of September 2008. 


 MS. MUNN: May I make a request that if we do 

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so we consider the location of that meeting to 


be on the east coast, or at least somewhere 


east of the Mississippi? I have to be in 


Florida on the 12th for a professional meeting 


and --


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: -- it would be very helpful if I 


were already on the east coast. 


 DR. BRANCHE: But are the dates okay? 

 MR. PRESLEY: I have -- no, I have a conflict 

on the 11th. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. 


DR. ROESSLER: Do the dates again. 


 DR. BRANCHE: Eight, nine --


 DR. WADE: Why don't we just -- We're talking 


about the 9th, 10th and 11th of September. Now 


I'm proposing the 8th, 9th and 10th of 


September. 


 MR. PRESLEY: That'd be good. 


 DR. WADE: On the east coast -- or east of the 


Mississippi. That's the big river -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: -- that cuts the country in half. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, so I can get there. 


 DR. POSTON: We've been talking about going to 

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Dallas. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would just concur with Wanda 


that we have a -- if we move it there, we move 


it onto the east coast because I -- I -- Dr. 


Howard and I will probably be busy on September 


11th also --


 DR. WADE: I understand. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- for -- for reasons -- now the 


other alternative is if it were done on the -- 


the week before, but starting on the -- 


Wednesday? So -- so it'd be the 5th -- 


 DR. WADE: No, the week before that. 


 MS. MUNN: You said you had Wednesdays tied up. 


 DR. MELIUS: No, no, just the first Wednesday 


of the month. 


 MS. MUNN: That's --


 DR. MELIUS: So I don't mind -- if it's the 


beginning -- first day of the meeting usually 


have a half-day subcommittee meeting so I end 


up missing a half-day. 


 DR. WADE: Do you want it to be that -- that 


week in -- the first week in September or the 


last week in August? 


 DR. MELIUS: The -- the first week in September 


is fine if it's the 4th and 5th. 

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 MS. MUNN: But that incorporates Labor Day, and 


that will affect many schedules. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, I -- I -- I apologize. 
I 


thought Labor Day was early -- the -- 


 DR. BRANCHE: Labor Day's the 1st. 


 DR. WADE: The 1st. 


 DR. MELIUS: Labor Day's the 1st? So --


 MS. MUNN: Yes, it is the 1st. 


 DR. MELIUS: So --


 MS. MUNN: But that means it's a short week for 


a lot of people, and many people will be taking 


that short week. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So let's say September 8, 9, 


10, east of the Mississippi. 


 MS. MUNN: Great. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Are we cast in concrete for the 


9th, 10th and the 11th of April? 


 DR. WADE: Well, that's on everyone's schedule. 


We can always revisit anything. 


 DR. MELIUS: And -- and I would just add to the 


-- the list of reconsider-- I also need to 


check on February 17th through 19th. I haven't 


had an opportunity to do that yet. 


 DR. BRANCHE: Of 2000... 

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 DR. MELIUS: Nine. 


 DR. WADE: So let's take them one at a time. 


April 9, 10 and 11 of 2008, Robert, what would 


you propose? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Seven, 8th and 9th. 


 DR. WADE: We have a proposal for the 7, 8th 


and 9th of April, 2008. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I need to be back home for the 


10th. 


 MS. MUNN: Could we do 8, 9 and 10 instead? 


 MR. PRESLEY: My -- my problem is I have a -- I 


have a meeting the 2nd Thursday of every month. 


 MS. MUNN: So it's 8 -- 7, 8, 9. 


 DR. WADE: 7, 8, 9? 


 MR. PRESLEY: I could make that. 


 DR. WADE: April 7, 8, 9, 2008 as a 


modification. Okay, I'm going to put it down. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Make it on the east coast 


somewhere? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Oak Ridge? 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, sure, thanks. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Be good. 


 MS. MUNN: I could travel all day Sunday. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Now, Dr. Melius, have you 


been able to access --

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 DR. MELIUS: I have to call -- I have to call 


some (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so --


 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) check on 


another meeting that I (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. WADE: -- I'm going to draw a line under 


January 13th, 2009. And with the changes 


discussed here, present that as a schedule that 


is set upon. Again, we will always attempt to 


accommodate you, although you understand the 


cat-herding nature of this exercise. We will 


hold open the 17th through the 19th of February 


2009 till we hear from Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Can you just give me the dates for 


the September '08 meeting again? 


 DR. WADE: September 8, 9 and 10 --


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- east of the Mississippi. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) That's '08? 


 MS. MUNN: '08, correct. 


 DR. MELIUS: '08, yes. 


 MS. MUNN: And --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) What dates have 


been changed, September 8, 9 and 10? 


 DR. WADE: And then we've changed April 9, 10 

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and 11 to April 7, 8, 9. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: So we're --


 DR. ZIEMER: We're okay on everything else. 


 MS. MUNN: We're okay on everything else, 


including December of both years. Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Very well done. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. It 


appears to me that we have completed our 


agenda. Does anyone have any other issue they 


wish to raise before we adjourn? 


 DR. WADE: Christine has one small housekeeping 


issue. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Housekeeping issue. 


MS. BEACH: I have one -- one question. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Josie, go ahead. 


MS. BEACH: Back on the schedule for December's 


meeting, would it be too much of a hardship to 


change it from the 6th to maybe the 13th? Or 


is that... 


 DR. WADE: We're open for anything. 


DR. ROESSLER: December 2007? 


 DR. WADE: The call. 


MS. BEACH: Yes. Yes, the call. 


UNIDENTIFIED: The call -- next month's call -- 

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or December's call. 


DR. ROESSLER: I think I'm at a meeting the -- 


MS. BEACH: Well, for any date other than the 


6th of the week following it. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) We can't do it 


(unintelligible). 


MS. BEACH: If not, that's fine. I'm just not 


available on the 6th. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I'm also gone that entire week, 


too. 


DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, I think I am that entire 


week. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Well, the 6th. 


DR. ROESSLER: Most of it. 


MS. BEACH: Well, as I listen to this meeting 


this week, there's a lot of issues that are 


going to come up on the 6th, so... 


 DR. WADE: Let's try --


 DR. ZIEMER: What are you proposing as an 


alternate date? 


MS. BEACH: Any time after that -- that -- the 


week of the 3rd to the 7th -- the 10th through 


the 14th, those are open. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Workgroup on procedures is meeting 


on the 11th. 

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 MR. PRESLEY: 11th. 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm -- I'm tied up all day the 


12th, 13th and 14th, although I -- well, yeah. 


10th would be okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: I can't do the 10th. 


 MS. MUNN: That whole week is out for you, 


Josie? 


MS. BEACH: Yes, and you also, Brad? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Also me. I'll be on travel. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, I'll be on travel, too, but I 


can get to the call. 


 DR. WADE: Want to try November 30th? 


MS. BEACH: November? 


 DR. WADE: Well, I was trying to look for a 


time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: How about the week of the 17th? 


MS. BEACH: That would be open, too. 


UNIDENTIFIED: The 17th and 18th will not work 


for us. 


 MS. MUNN: You know, the -- what was wrong with 


November 30th, though? That's the week after 


Thanksgiving. That's not Thanksgiving week. 


It's a week later. 


 DR. WADE: I heard a grudged (unintelligible). 

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 DR. POSTON: Yeah, no, I'm not available that 


date. 


MS. BEACH: Neither am I. Okay, I just --


 (Whereupon, numerous Board members began 


speaking simultaneously.) 


DR. ROESSLER: Josie, do the dates the second 


week in December again. I just found my 


schedule. 


 DR. WADE: Well, that we lost -- the second 


week in September (sic), the week starting with 


the 10th, we lost to --


 DR. ZIEMER: Is the 10th out? 


MS. BEACH: The 10th was out for you. 


DR. ROESSLER: The 10th is out for me. 


 DR. WADE: How about the 19th -- 19th of 


December? 


MS. BEACH: Good for me. 


DR. ROESSLER: What -- what day of the week is 


that? 


 DR. WADE: Wednesday. 


MS. BEACH: Wednesday. 


 DR. WADE: Christmas time -- Christmas -- 


holiday season will be in the air. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it's -- it's a week before 


Christmas. 

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 MS. MUNN: It is. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) I have a -- I 


have a Department of (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. WADE: We're going to have to stay. 


MS. BEACH: Okay, that's fine. 


 DR. POSTON: I have a Department of Defense 


meeting that day. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You're off, okay. 


 DR. WADE: Sorry, Josie, we --


MS. BEACH: That's fine. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So we're going to stay with -- 


 (Whereupon, numerous Board members spoke 


simultaneously.) 


 DR. WADE: Brad, you're not available on the 


6th? 


 MR. CLAWSON: No. 


MS. BEACH: I'm at an SRA meeting. 


 DR. WADE: Is everyone else available on the 


6th? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: We have quorum issues? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Wait a minute. Dr. Poston, can 


you make the 6th? 


DR. ROESSLER: I haven't been going to NCRP 


meetings in (unintelligible). 

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200

 DR. ZIEMER: You okay on the 6th? 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


but I can come (unintelligible). 


 DR. POSTON: I was more concerned about April. 


NCRP meeting is 7th and 8th. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, no, the 6th of December. 


 DR. WADE: Telephone call. 


 DR. POSTON: Yeah, I'm fine -- all right, I'm 


fine with that. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so we have ten fine people. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. POSTON: I was more concerned about moving 


the April meeting because the NCRP meeting is 


the 7th and 8th. 


UNIDENTIFIED: So you now have a conflict? 


 DR. POSTON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: So now we're back to April 7, 8 and 


9. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- wait a minute. I've 


got NCRP also. 


 DR. POSTON: That's why I brought it up. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: Originally, you know, we had 


scheduled that one the last week in March, and 


we turned -- finished changing it -- 

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 MR. PRESLEY: We changed it. 


 MS. MUNN: -- and I --


 DR. POSTON: Well, if we -- if we just had it 


in Washington, D.C., that -- we could make it 


'cause we're (unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: What's wrong with the first week in 


April? 


 DR. ZIEMER: What's the start date on NCRP? 


 DR. POSTON: 7th and 8th. 


 MS. MUNN: And that's going to be where? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Washington. 


 DR. POSTON: In Washington. 


 MS. MUNN: Washington? So if we had our April 


meeting say the -- the 1st, 2nd and 3rd or the 


2nd, 3rd and 4th, for people who were going to 


-- needed to be in Washington anyway, stay over 


the weekend and go to NCRP. 


 DR. MELIUS: I'm not available the -- I have 


another meeting the 3rd and 4th of April. 


 MS. MUNN: So --


DR. ROESSLER: Well, John, are you talking 


about 2008? 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, he --


 DR. POSTON: Yes, ma'am. 


DR. ROESSLER: I see -- I'm on the NCRP web 

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site. I see April 14th and 15th, 2008 -- 


 DR. POSTON: Really? 


DR. ROESSLER: -- and a meeting. 


 DR. POSTON: Oh, okay, I had it on -- 


DR. ROESSLER: So I think it's -- I think 


you're okay. 


 DR. POSTON: I had it on the 7th and 8th. 


DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, I think it's later. I 


mean I'm on the NCRP web site. Why don't you 


just double-check it, but it says 2008 annual 


meeting, April 14th/15th in Bethesda. 


 DR. ZIEMER: In Bethesda? 

 DR. POSTON: In Bethesda? 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's usually at Crystal City. 

UNIDENTIFIED: That's the D.C. metro -- 


DR. ROESSLER: I know, I think they've moved 


it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, okay. 


 DR. BRANCHE: It's still D.C. metro. 


 DR. WADE: So we're -- now we're still on April 


7, 8 and 9. Just let us know if -- 


 DR. MELIUS: We're getting a little concerned 


about this organization. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, why don't we keep it at 


April 7 to 9th unless we find that -- 

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 DR. WADE: Right, if the Chair has -- I think 


we will certainly change it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- if -- if that turns out to be 


NCRP meeting, there's at least three of us 


involved in there and I'm speaking at that 


meeting so I've got to be there. 


 DR. MELIUS: Forever or whenever. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm speaking about the EEOICPA 


program. 


 MS. MUNN: My only concern now is -- is that we 


have not made any decision at all about where 


that April meeting is going to be. It's always 


very helpful for me to know at least more than 


one schedule ahead of time where we're likely 


to find ourselves. 


 DR. ZIEMER: (Unintelligible) know by December? 


 DR. WADE: Well, let's tentatively pick a date 


now. It -- it seems to me --


 DR. BRANCHE: A date or location? 


 DR. WADE: A location, I'm sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What's coming up that we need to 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. WADE: Well, let's think about it. It 


seems like Mound is looming. Right? Fernald 


will be looming. 

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 MS. MUNN: Mound looms. 


 DR. WADE: Cincinnati? That's east of some 


river, I don't know what river it is. 


 DR. ZIEMER: North of the Ohio. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Easy to get to. 


 DR. WADE: You want to think -- I mean it seems 


to me -- I thought about this last night, and 


it's -- it seems like Mound and Fernald are big 


SECs that are churning. 


 DR. MELIUS: And we've never done a meeting 


convenient to Mound. We've got -- gotten 


closer, but I don't think we've ever sort of 


focused -- put the meeting there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What's closer than -- is Dayton 


closer? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Dayton's closer, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but we had one near Fernald. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, no, we've done Fernald -- 


well, done Cincinnati, then we did the northern 


Cincinnati --


 DR. ZIEMER: How easy is Dayton to get to for 


folks, airport-wise? 


 DR. WADE: Not bad. 


DR. ROESSLER: From Cincinnati to Dayton? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Fly to Cincinnati and 

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(unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: It's not that far. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I (unintelligible) --


 DR. MELIUS: May-- maybe look at the areas -- 


may-- maybe Lew wants these to sort of figure 


out where we're going to be in terms of 


decision-making. Mound will be -- I'm not sure 


we'll be ready by then, but -- 


 DR. WADE: Fernald, near. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- I mean there -- there's still 


just -- bring out Fernald -- Fernald if we're 


ready to make a decision on that, I think 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: I think we're a ways away on 


Fernald --


 MR. CLAWSON: Yes, we are. 


 DR. MELIUS: Ev-- even April is -- six months 


from now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I thought this was January. 


 DR. BRANCHE: No, Las Vegas is January. 


 DR. WADE: January we're in Las Vegas. Does 


anybody have another proposal for April? 


 MS. MUNN: Well, I'm always willing to throw 


out Pantex. 


DR. ROESSLER: You know, I'm ready to go there. 

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 MS. MUNN: I'm -- I'm always ready for 


Amarillo. 


 DR. MELIUS: What's the Florida site we always 


bring up and --


 DR. WADE: Pinellas. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Pinellas. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- it always gets put off till 


August and say no, no -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Pinellas. 


 DR. MELIUS: Pinellas. 


 DR. WADE: Do you want me to pencil in either 


Pinellas or Cincinnati or Amarillo? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Well, we owe it to Pinellas 


and to Pantex to seriously consider going there 


 DR. ZIEMER: Actually --

 DR. MELIUS: -- much to our chagrin. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- Pinellas had almost no activity 

anyway. They did very little there. But 


Pantex is -- you know, they -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- we really owe them a -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- (unintelligible) the weapons 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. MELIUS: -- we owe them a visit. 

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 DR. WADE: Amarillo. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Amarillo, Texas is penciled in for 


April 7, 8 and 9. 


 MS. MUNN: San Antone (sic). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Texas -- I (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. POSTON: It's only -- it's very close, it's 


only 800 miles away. 


 (Whereupon, numerous Board members spoke 


simultaneously.) 


 DR. MELIUS: If we're going to be doing a 


decision on Fernald --


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- we shouldn't be going to 


Pantex. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so we'll be --


 DR. ZIEMER: If -- I'm -- I'll be surprised if 


we're there, but if we are, that's -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: Maybe for June. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so my instructions are 


Amarillo, unless --


 MR. GRIFFON: Unless Fernald is --


 DR. WADE: -- Fernald looms large in April. 


wish I could be more specific. They won't let 


me be. 


I 
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 MS. MUNN: That's fine. 


 DR. WADE: It doesn't make me a bad person. 


 MS. MUNN: We -- we stay flexible. 


 DR. LOCKEY: I've got to bring up -- I'm sorry 


-- December 6th. I was looking at the wrong 


year. I am conflicted that date, as Josie is, 


so... 


 DR. BRANCHE: That's three people who won't be 


on the call. 


 DR. WADE: That's three people not on a call. 


Do you want to find another date, or do you 


want -- we have a quorum with nine. 


 MS. MUNN: Why did we reject the 13th? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Some --


 DR. BRANCHE: 'Cause some people had a meeting. 


Two people are out --


 DR. LOCKEY: The 13th's fine with me -- 13th's 


good for me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm out the 13th. I'm out --


 DR. BRANCHE: The Chair is out on the 13th. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Are we talking December 6th 


again? Is that --


 DR. WADE: Yeah, we're back to December 6th. 


 MS. MUNN: So -- well --


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm out 11th, 12th and thir-- 

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well, 11th is a workgroup on procedures. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, face-to-face. 


DR. ROESSLER: I'm okay on the 13th, or even 


the 12th. 


 MS. MUNN: You said you were okay on the 13th ­

-


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm out the 12th, 13th and 14th. 


 MS. MUNN: The Chair's not. 


 DR. LOCKEY: How about the 10th? 


 DR. ZIEMER: The 10th is okay. 


 DR. BRANCHE: Well, Dr. Melius can't do the 


10th and Gen, you can't do the 10th. 


 MS. MUNN: I can't do the 10th, I'm flying. 


 DR. LOCKEY: You can't do the 10th? 


 MS. MUNN: I'm traveling across the 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Anytime the week of the 17th. 


UNIDENTIFIED: We (unintelligible) we were 


looking at the 19th. 


 MS. MUNN: No, no, that's the Christmas time 


thing that we (unintelligible). 


 DR. LOCKEY: How about the 19th? 


 DR. WADE: Oh, you didn't like Chri-- how about 


the 19th? 


 DR. LOCKEY: 19th. 

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 DR. WADE: 19th. 


 MS. MUNN: We talked about that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Couldn't do the 19th? 


 DR. WADE: Just a phone call. 


 DR. LOCKEY: No, the 19th's fine. 


DR. ROESSLER: What day of the week is the 

19th? 

UNIDENTIFIED: Wednesday. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Wednesday. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. WADE: A scant six or seven hours. 


 DR. MELIUS: Jim, are you sure you don't have a 


prob-- I thought you said -- 


 DR. LOCKEY: No, I was in the wrong year. 


 DR. MELIUS: Oh, okay, okay. 


 DR. WADE: December 19th -- 11:00 a.m. phone 


call. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we've got December 19th on 


the docket now. I think that's all -- 


 DR. WADE: Gen having to check --


DR. ROESSLER: I think I'm out for that 


meeting. 


 DR. BRANCHE: You think you're out? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Are you out the whole week? Well, 


check, Gen, and let's find out. Okay. 

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DR. ROESSLER: I didn't bring that with me 


'cause I thought we were all settled. 


 DR. WADE: That's okay, people's lives change, 


so I'm going to write down the 19th, subject to 


change. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: I would like to suggest that you 


continue to consider one day in the last week 


of November because that's -- that's only a 


week away from where we had originally started, 


and we threw that -- I think the fact that it 


is well after --


 DR. BRANCHE: Thanksgiving? 


 MS. MUNN: -- the Thanksgiving holiday -- 


 DR. WADE: Fine, let's explore the week of the 


26th of November. 


 DR. BRANCHE: 2007, let's just make sure those 


people are on the right calendar -- 2007. 


 DR. LOCKEY: What we're saying now is that the 


19th is not okay. Right? 


 DR. WADE: Well, we're not saying it's not 


okay, we're --


 DR. BRANCHE: It's just a little late in the 

year. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And plus -- plus -- I mean part 
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of it is you got a full Board meeting January ­

- you know, coming up right -- like three weeks 


later. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, just two weeks later -- 


three --


 DR. WADE: The week of November 26th, 2007. 


DR. ROESSLER: Sounds good. 


UNIDENTIFIED: What about (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any conflicts that week? 


 MS. MUNN: Or Wednesday the 28th? 


 DR. WADE: The December 6th call is being 


shifted to the week of December (sic) 26th, 


tentativ--


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, you're out all week? 


 DR. LOCKEY: The 28th'll be all right. 


 DR. WADE: November 26. 


 DR. BRANCHE: That's a Wednesday. 


 DR. LOCKEY: 28th is all right. 


DR. ROESSLER: 26th --


 MS. MUNN: Wednesday the 28th. 


MS. BEACH: 27th is good, 28th is out for me. 


 DR. LOCKEY: How about the 29th? 


MS. BEACH: Out. Only two days is 26th/27th 


for me, so... 


 DR. WADE: 27th of November? 

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 DR. BRANCHE: That's a Tuesday. 


 DR. WADE: Tuesday. 27th of November -- Dr. 


Poston? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Going once. 


 DR. POSTON: (Off microphone) I don't think 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. WADE: I'm sorry? 


 DR. LOCKEY: I've got a conflict that day, I 

can't --

 DR. POSTON: That's fine with me. 

 DR. WADE: 27th of November, going once -- 


 DR. LOCKEY: I'm conflicted, I can't do it that 


day. 


 DR. BRANCHE: Anybody else who's conflicted 


that day? 


UNIDENTIFIED: What's with you people, having a 


life? 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: 26th? 


 DR. WADE: 27th, 26th? 


 DR. LOCKEY: I'm conflicted the 26th and 27th. 


 DR. BRANCHE: I would only caution that the 


26th is the Monday after Thanksgiving -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. BRANCHE: -- for those who will be doing -- 

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 MS. MUNN: Obviously not a smart idea. The 


27th. 


 DR. BRANCHE: Tuesday the 27th? 


 DR. WADE: Without Dr. Lockey. 


 MS. MUNN: We'll just have to drop out -- 


 DR. WADE: Are you okay with that, Dr. Lockey? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Sure. 


 DR. WADE: The 27th -- Tuesday the 27th of 


November, 2007, 11:00 a.m., with an 


understanding that Dr. Lockey is not available. 


 DR. BRANCHE: That's 11:00 a.m. Right? 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. LOCKEY: So that's in place of the 6th. 


Right? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: Replaces the 6th, 19th, many other 


dates. 


 Okay, we're -- we're set -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Could I just ma-- make one 


request? I -- I think if -- if people are 


developing conflicts that -- I mean they do 


come up, we're all busy -- for meetings, it'd 


be helpful if we -- rather than wait till we 


come here, if possible do it ahead of time and 


let people know 'cause at least myself, I 

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schedule things around these meetings and then 


-- they -- then I'm -- we're sort of locked 


into dates and I've told people that do 


meetings on certain days 'cause -- and -- that 


I can't do it on the 6th, then -- so it's -- 


 MR. CLAWSON: Well, also, too, if one of us is 


going to be gone -- that's why I didn't say 


anything about December 6th because it was only 


me. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah -- no -- no, I'm not 


trying to call (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. WADE: There's no bad people. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- (unintelligible) think -- but 


it just made -- facilitated the earlier we can 


deal with these conflicts, the better -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- and so forth and --


 DR. WADE: My desire is to have more than a 


year of meetings scheduled for you 'cause 


that's what you've asked me to do. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and we all can then schedule 


around it. 


Okay, Christine has --


 DR. BRANCHE: Yeah, one bookkeeping issue. If 


you would like your book to be mailed back to 

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you, if you could please use your name tent, 


put it inside your book somewhere, and then 


take it out to the desk for Zaida. If you 


don't have your name on it, she won't know who 


it's for and it won't go. 


MS. BEACH: Do you want us to put addresses on 


it or is she okay without -- 


 DR. BRANCHE: She's got that, just the name 


tent to indicate that it's yours. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I think that completes our 


business. Or Jim, do you have your tent up for 


a comment or just out of habit? 


 DR. MELIUS: No -- yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Do we -- do we qualify for 


identity theft if --


 DR. ZIEMER: I think so. 


 DR. MELIUS: Someone -- I understand someone 


stole the -- the name tag (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, the group is getting 


sufficiently frivolous. I can tell that we've 


completed our work. 


Thank you all very much. You've completed your 


50th anniversary meeting of this Board. We 


appreciate all your work, have a safe trip home 

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and we'll be talking to you in -- in October. 


 DR. MELIUS: And if you'll wait 15 minutes, Ray 


will have the transcripts ready. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded at 12:35 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

218 

1 

2 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of Oct. 5, 2007; 


and it is a true and accurate transcript of the 


testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


8th day of November, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102